There is a plethera of programming languages, let us take a look into some of these languages which might be worth while learning. Keep in mind that preference of a specific syntax is programmers choice, write yourself a syntax translator if you wish to always write in a single syntax. Here we’ll forget about any preferences for a while and focus on what can be done with the current technology.

Where to start

First programming language (Python, C++, Java, C#, PHP) – The one which can accomplish your goals so you have motivation of learning it by building something interesting. Wide spread language is advantageous because it is easier to find support.

Opinions

Okay, I said I will forget about preferences, here I will break that promise.

• C++ – Low-level, high performance. Still very popular.
• Python – I find that python is the ‘glue’ programming language. It is simple to write a short program which does something with files, network, prompt user, compute something, etc.
• C# – I assume there are some programmers working on windows.
• Java – Multi-platform by default. High in popularity and boilerplate code.
• Rust – Basically C++ where correctness of memory allocation is proven at compile time.
• SageMath, R, Matlab, Mathematica – Good for computing complex mathematical stuff. Not really suitable to develop programms in.
• CSS – Not a programming language. Just says how the webpage looks.
• HTML – Also not a programming language. Says what is on the webpage.
• Javascript – Technically a programming language. Says how the webpage will behave.
• AngularJS – Outdated, use Angular instead.
• Scala – An iteration of Java.
• Kotlin – (Yet) another iteration of Java which got pretty popular. Benefits from complex but compact syntax.
• Assembly – Too low-level to develop in.

Note on preferences

There is some (but very limited) place for creating a custom language from scratch.