I think it depends on what are your goals. Broadly, there are three cases: (a) You have a quantitative background (math, physics, engineering, finance). The an

I think it depends on what are your goals. Broadly, there are three cases: (a) You have a quantitative background (math, physics, engineering, finance). The answer here is to simply ask your colleagues what they use and copy them. Those are all sectors where access to libraries and specialized software is very important, so that should be your main concern. As a default, Python is sensible: it might not be the best choice but it's unlikely to be terribly wrong either. (b) You would like to make your own life easier, or write some software for a specific purpose, but you are not interested in being a professional developer. In this case I'll go against the grain and suggest you learn Javascript. As a language... you have better options, let's leave it at that, but it's very easy to get started with, there's a wealth of libraries available, it can play double duty as both a backend and frontend language, and you can't go wrong betting on the Web. (c) You would like software to be your career. In this case, focus on the fundamentals and not languages. Try to learn at least a low level language (C, C++, Rust...), at least a typed high-level OO language (Go, Java, C#...) and at least a scripting language (Python, Ruby, Perl...). Make sure to learn SQL.