As far as syntax, it's about as easy to pick up as it gets. ( <a href="http://diveintopython.org/" rel="nofollow">http://diveintopython.org/</a> )<p>Web dev wise, it helps if you had some experience with PHP frameworks (though most of them are modeled more on Rails rather than Django or other Python frameworks). Also, the libraries aren't built in as in PHP and documentation isn't as good as PHP's (I'm not aware of any language that has online docs as good as PHP's. Django has great docs, though).<p>I recommend starting with Google App Engine. It basically takes care of the deployment for you, which is often a sore point in many environments. It's free and includes a basic framework that resembles web.py with bits of Django. In fact it's worth picking up Python even just for the sake of making use of GAE.