“If you decide to design your own language, there are thousands of sort of amateur language designer pitfalls.”
Author details
Other Guido van Rossum Quotes
Now, it's my belief that Python is a lot easier than to teach to students programming and teach them C or C++ or Java at the same time because all the details of the languages are so much harder. Other scripting languages really don't work very well there either.
Guido van Rossum 
69% of people like this quote
I have this hope that there is a better way. Higher-level tools that actually let you see the structure of the software more clearly will be of tremendous value.
Guido van Rossum
62% of people like this quote
I would guess that the decision to create a small special purpose language or use an existing general purpose language is one of the toughest decisions that anyone facing the need for a new language must make.
Guido van Rossum
59% of people like this quote
The second stream of material that is going to come out of this project is a programming environment and a set of programming tools where we really want to focus again on the needs of the newbie. This environment is going to have to be extremely user-friendly.
Guido van Rossum
52% of people like this quote