I think it depends on you, to some extent, so without knowing you it's harder to say. The big question is "why?". 1) Are you learning to program because you h

I think it depends on you, to some extent, so without knowing you it's harder to say. The big question is "why?". 1) Are you learning to program because you have something specific you're dying to build? Depending on what it is you dream of building, there may be a language that's more appropriate than others. If you want to build a mobile app, you pretty much have to learn either swift (iOS) or Java (android). If you want to build a web app you could reasonably choose Ruby, Python, Javascript, Elixir, or probably a dozen others I'm forgetting. If you have a lot of data you want to analyze, you might want to learn R. If you want to write games, then Lua is a great choice. etc. 2) But maybe you don't have a project in mind, you're just interested in how it all works. In that case, you should know that it works a lot of different ways, and different languages will teach you different things. Learning C will give you a great understanding of how computers actually work at a low level. Learning Ruby will teach you a lot about object oriented programming, which is currently the most popular paradigm. Learning Haskell, Elm, Elixir, or Erlang will teach you about functional programming, which is quite a different paradigm but one that's getting a lot more popular lately. If this is what's driving you then I'd say you should learn 2-3 languages that are sufficiently different: something low level, something high level and object oriented, something functional. 3) But maybe you want to learn to program because you hope to get a well paying job asap. I'm not sure that's such a great idea, but if that's the plan, then I suggest something where there are a lot of jobs right now. Javascript, Ruby, or Swift, most likely. Learn one of them sufficiently to be useful, and get yourself in a position where you're getting paid to do this. Then, if you want to have a happier life, follow the advice in section 2.