It seems that Python is becoming the preferred language for scripting in science and I wrote a getting started page for Chemists and several people have pointed out a couple of resources that may be useful in particular Roaslind.

Rosalind is a platform for learning bioinformatics and programming through problem solving.

I looks like an excellent starting point for newcomers and more experienced programmers, whilst focussed on bioinformatics the exercises are useful for all disciplines.

For chemists chempython looks to be a very useful resource.