If you haven’t looked at Python yet, a good a place as any to start is with the Devshed tutorials and Instant Python.

A few interesting points:

• python’s been around since 1989
• the class library is very complete
• the name was inspired by Monty Python’s Flying Circus
• much early Google work was done in python where it continues to be widely used today
• the documentation and tutorials are extensive, more essay focused than what you find in PHP
• similar to PHP: choice of procedural/OO coding style is left to the programmer, the language is loosely typed and there is no concept of private/public vars
• different from PHP: a very elegant handling of namespaces, compiled code from imported modules, and a very flexible interactive shell environment