Javascript. It's simple enough, completely ubiquitous and has an incredible amount of online resources. To start, just open developer tools in your favorite b

Javascript. It's simple enough, completely ubiquitous and has an incredible amount of online resources. To start, just open developer tools in your favorite browser and type console.log("Hello, World!");. Congratulations! You've just written your first computer "program". Now go try one of the thousands of great javascript tutorials for absolute beginners. Once you learn the basics you're now able to code anything from a basic website to an embedded machine. Your code will work on any operating system and can be distributed on a platform (the web) that makes it trivial to show off your work to your friends. But even if you don't choose Javascript, please avoid some people's suggestions of learning systems languages like C, C++, Rust or a paradigm-specific language like Java, C#, Haskell. Yes, these are all fine languages in their own right, but you'll spend a month writing boilerplate you don't understand, which is both confusing and unhelpful. If you have any friends that can program and are willing to help you, following what they know may also be a good idea.