Depends on) 1) Who you ask, their opinions etc (and there are many) 2) What you want to do. Coding is too big of a field to say "you should learn this language.

Depends on) 1) Who you ask, their opinions etc (and there are many) 2) What you want to do. Coding is too big of a field to say "you should learn this language." Javascript is ubiquitous and you can do most anything with it (especially work with browsers) but it's also not the loveliest language. You mention web design so then CSS, Javascript and HTML would be the logical choices. If you want to learn to code, though, then I would personally suggest learning a functional language - maybe Clojure or Scala? That's a highly opinionated recommendation because my own experience has shown me that learning functional programming makes you more capable with other more imperative languages. This might be of interest. http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/OtherDocs/To%20the%20Budget%20Council%20concerning%20Haskell.pdf http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/OtherDocs/To%20the%20Budg... Most people would likely recommend something like python or ruby or even Java. There are many opinions. I would look at what you want to do first, and then choose the technologies that are used in that problem domain. Coursera has courses that you can take for free. It would be a good place to start.