Notably, pascal uses `:=` and is one of the better first languages in my opinion for many more reasons (easy to grasp language core, simple non-null terminated strings, no actual need to learn pointers until the very advanced stages). Today I mostly advice other people to start with python though, because pascal feels somewhat dated and undertooled.
I think Python's behavior of disallowing assignment in expressions is good enough to avoid those mistakes; it's an anti-pattern anyway in the vast majority of cases.
