> as does python, which had a reputation for decades as THE language to use to teach new folks to code

I am very perplexed by this. I am going through Neetcode's DSA course where he explains what RAM and arrays are, but then he goes on to say something like "but since we are going to use Python, none of this applies." Personally, I learned the most about how software really works from reading The Rust Programming Language. It not only teaches you how to program in Rust, but also how memory works, what a string really is, etc.