A lot of people seem to overdo it, but I'd recommend - Some sort of assembly - C - Java/Kotlin/C#/similar - Python - Javascript - Some Lisp flavor - Poss

A lot of people seem to overdo it, but I'd recommend - Some sort of assembly - C - Java/Kotlin/C#/similar - Python - Javascript - Some Lisp flavor - Possibly Erlang - Possibly Rust This covers a lot of layers of the stack, along with some unique paradigms. I'd use it somewhat seriously for a while (months to year), not just as a toy to learn a language in a week. For a toy, JS and Java are close enough that you might not appreciate that once you get past the syntax, they're radically different.