i'm a novice programmer too who wants to write a simple roguelike, i learn two languages - c and python (well, a bit of javascript too, but it doesn't matter, for roguelikes it looks like a worse version of python with a browser instead of an interpreter) and i decided that python will be harder to write something for me as for an almost complete novice. yes, harder, i preferred to have arrays of structures, functions and sprintf instead handy classes, methods and python's amazing string support for two reasons:
with c i don't need any additional libs at all, even ncurses, i can have color and arrow input with basic c libs. it saved me a lot of time, i already have a working very basic game - draft of level generator (random placement of walls, random monsters, traps), basic ai (chasing, rounding obstacles), combat, moving&fighting hero, basic hud, even some drafts of item implementation (inventory, dropping, looting), while if i had chosen python i would probably have spent most of time trying to understand how to use some lib to have almost the same output (i don't want to use graphic anyway)
easy executables and portability, i can use the same code for windows (compiled with cygwin) and linux, while i don't even figured yet how to make exe from a python script
