The community was there, at least that was my feeling when I started learning Python around 2003. What wasn't there was of course almost anything web-related, for my first "website" in Python I had to resort to using mod_python, which was a perfectly fine project in itself but which wasn't giving you the same instant gratification as PHP did when it came to the web. (there was also the Zope ecosystem, but that's a subject in itself).