In my experience, the answer to this question largely depends on what your ultimate goals are. Want to become a competent programmer and do that for a living?

In my experience, the answer to this question largely depends on what your ultimate goals are. Want to become a competent programmer and do that for a living? The advice in this thread is solid (particularly @CyberFonic's). If you simply want to hack/glue-up/play around with some side projects, I once heard someone suggest you pick the language your close friends know best and buy them lots of beer. In my case, I needed a newbie-friendly prototyping tool and JavaScript/Meteor has served me well. So, give us an idea of your goals, and I'm sure the community here will be able to steer you in the right direction.