Which Programming Language Should You Learn Next?

As a software developer, one of the most important things you can do to advance your career is to continually learn new programming languages. But with so many languages out there, it can be difficult to decide which one to focus on next.

In this post, I‘ll break down the most valuable languages to learn for developers at the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Whether you‘re just starting out in your programming journey or you‘re a seasoned veteran, adding a new language to your toolbelt will expand your skills, make you more marketable to employers, and help you think about problems in new ways.

The Programming Language Landscape in 2023

Before we jump into recommendations, let‘s take a look at the current programming language ecosystem. I analyzed data from major developer surveys and job postings to determine which languages are most popular among professional developers and employers.

Programming language popularity according to Stack Overflow Developer Survey.

As you can see from the Stack Overflow Developer Survey results above, the most commonly used languages overall are JavaScript, HTML/CSS, Python, SQL, and Java. These foundational languages form the backbone of much of the software being developed today across the web, data science, and enterprise domains.

However, popularity alone doesn‘t necessarily make a language the best choice to learn next. We also need to consider the trajectory a language is on – is it growing or shrinking in usage? A language might be very popular today but declining as newer alternatives emerge.

Programming language popularity trend according to PYPL Index.

From looking at the 5-year growth trend in the PYPL Popularity of Programming Language Index, we can see that Python has seen explosive growth, nearly doubling in usage, likely driven by the rise of data science and machine learning applications. Other fast-growing languages include TypeScript, a strongly-typed variant of JavaScript, and Go, a modern system programming language.

On the flip side, languages like Java, C, and PHP are still heavily used but declining in popularity over time as they get supplanted by newer alternatives. Developers learning a new language should take these shifts into account.

With this background on the overall language landscape, let‘s get into my specific recommendations for which languages are most valuable to learn for developers at different experience levels.

The Best Programming Language for Beginners to Learn

If you‘re a complete beginner to coding, the first language you should learn is Python. Python has several characteristics that make it the ideal language to start with:

1. Simple, readable syntax. Python code is very concise and understandable compared to many other languages. It uses indentation rather than curly braces and semi-colons to delimit code blocks, making it read much closer to plain English. This approachability makes it less intimidating for new programmers.

2. Versatility. Python is a general-purpose language that can be used for a huge variety of applications, including web development, data science, machine learning, and desktop applications. This versatility means the skills you learn will be widely applicable.

3. Extensive standard library and third-party packages. Python comes with "batteries included" – it has a very extensive built-in standard library providing tools for many common tasks. In addition, the Python Package Index (PyPI) hosts over 200,000 third-party packages providing functionality for virtually anything you can think of. Having this code available to use massively boosts your productivity as you‘re learning.

4. Excellent learning resources. Because it is so widely used as a first language to teach programming, there are a wealth of quality learning resources for Python available online, many of them free. This includes interactive tutori

als and web-based environments that let you try out code right in your browser.

Python‘s design philosophy emphasizes code readability and simplicity. Compared to other languages, it takes fewer lines of code to accomplish the same tasks, as you can see here:

Comparing equivalent code between Python and Java. Python code is much more concise.

So in Python there‘s less syntax to wrestle with and you can focus on the fundamentals of programming – variables, data types, conditional logic, loops, functions and so on. This helps you build a foundation you can layer more advanced concepts on top of.

While Python is an interpreted language and slower than compiled languages, its performance is more than sufficient for learning the basics. And its wide usage means the skills you gain will be immediately applicable in many domains.

Alternatives Beginner Languages to Consider

The next best alternative beginner-friendly language after Python is JavaScript. JavaScript is a bit more complex syntactically than Python, but as the language that powers interactive web experiences in all browsers, it‘s hugely popular and in demand. If your main interest is web development, JavaScript is the best place to start.

If you‘re interested in Apple platforms or mobile development, Swift is a good beginner-friendly language to consider. It has a clean, modern syntax and offers the ability to build powerful, graphical applications more easily than Python.

The Best Programming Language for Intermediate Developers

If you already have some fundamental programming knowledge under your belt, the next language I recommend focusing on is Go (often referred to as Golang). Go was created at Google in 2007 to help solve the engineering challenges of building large-scale software systems. It has since seen rapid adoption and is used in many high performance back end and distributed systems today.

Here‘s why Go is a great fit for developers at the intermediate level:

1. Easy to learn coming from other languages. While Go introduces some unique concepts like goroutines for concurrency, its core syntax is very similar to languages like C and Java. It has a small grammar and focuses on simplicity and directness. Developers familiar with other procedural languages find Go relatively easy to pick up.

2. Modern features and conveniences. Go includes many features that feel missing from older languages, such as type inference, concurrency primitives, garbage collection, and robust standard libraries. It also compiles to a single binary, making deployment simple. These help you write cleaner, more maintainable code.

3. Growing usage and community support. Go‘s popularity and usage have grown steadily since its introduction. It has strong adoption in the cloud infrastructure space, used by projects like Docker and Kubernetes, and in many web application back ends. This increasing usage translates into more jobs and opportunities for Go developers. The community is active and there are many open source libraries and tools to aid development.

4. Performance and simplicity. Go strikes a balance between the simplicity and productivity of dynamically-typed languages like Python and the performance of compiled languages like C++. It has very fast compile times and its concurrency support allows you to take full advantage of multi-core processors. Benchmarks show it to be orders of magnitude faster than Python and close to C in some tests.

Go benchmarks compared to other languages. Go is much faster than Python and on par with low-level languages like C.

Learning Go will give you experience with a statically-typed, compiled language and help you understand how to optimize performance-critical systems. You‘ll also gain familiarity with concepts like interfaces, goroutines, and channels that will expand your mental model of programming.

As an intermediate developer, learning Go will level up your engineering skills and prepare you to take on more complex software challenges. It‘s a valuable skill to have on your resume that will open up opportunities to work on interesting back end and infrastructure projects.

Alternative Intermediate Language Recommendations

If Go doesn‘t appeal to you, here are some other great languages to consider at the intermediate level:

Rust is a systems programming language that offers the performance and control of C/C++ while preventing many common bugs and security vulnerabilities. It has a steeper learning curve than Go but is a good fit if you want to really understand low-level programming.

TypeScript is a strictly-typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript. If you‘re doing heavy JavaScript development, TypeScript will help you avoid bugs, better express your intent, and make refactoring easier. It‘s very popular in the Node.js and front-end web ecosystems.

The Best Programming Language for Experienced Developers

For seasoned developers who have mastered multiple programming paradigms, I recommend exploring functional programming languages like Haskell, OCaml, or Lisp variants like Clojure. These languages will challenge you to approach problems in a completely different way, honing your skills even further.

Here‘s what makes functional programming a good choice for experienced developers:

1. Extremely high level of abstraction. Functional languages operate at a very high level of abstraction, working primarily with functions and immutable data rather than mutable objects and state. They provide recursion, lazy evaluation, and powerful type systems that can express complex relationships. This encourages you to break down problems into clean, mathematical functions that can be composed together.

2. Mind-expanding concepts. Functional programming introduces concepts like pure functions, monads, and functors that will be new even to many experienced developers. Learning to use these techniques will make you a better programmer even in imperative languages. You‘ll start thinking more about the contracts and composition of the functions you write.

3. Growing importance in data analysis and AI. While functional languages remain niche overall, they are increasingly used in data analysis, AI/ML, and finance applications. Tools like Spark and Hadoop rely heavily on functional programming concepts. Learning languages like Scala or F# can be valuable if you want to work in these domains.

4. Compiler assurance of correctness. Functional languages‘ powerful static type systems, immutability, and lack of side effects make entire categories of bugs impossible. Techniques like monad-driven error handling force you to handle edge cases. The compilers catch many problems that would only be found at runtime in other languages. This makes functional programs easier to reason about and maintain over time.

Here‘s an example of how functional code compares to imperative code for a simple task:

Comparing imperative vs. functional implementations of computing the sum of squares. The functional version is terser and has no mutable state.

As you can see, the functional version is much more concise and declarative. It defines what operations to carry out, not how to do it step-by-step. There is no changing state to keep track of. This style is easier to test and reason about.

Learning a functional language will make you re-examine many of your assumptions about programming and solve problems in a more composable, mathematical way. It‘s a valuable way for experienced developers to expand their thinking and tackle problems at an extremely high level of abstraction.

Other Options for Experienced Developers

Some other mind-expanding languages to check out as an experienced developer:

Prolog is a logic programming language where you define facts and rules about your data, then query the system to find answers that fit those constraints. It will completely change how you approach certain problems and is worth learning for that insight alone.

Lisp and its variants like Scheme are dynamically-typed functional languages with minimal syntax. They were some of the earliest high-level languages developed. Lisp pioneered many ideas that are commonplace today, like garbage collection, recursion, higher-order functions, and dynamic typing. Learning Lisp helps you understand the history of programming and many foundational computer science concepts.

Never Stop Learning

Whichever language you choose to learn next, the most important thing is to just get started. Pick a project you‘re excited about and jump in. Build something to solidify your knowledge.

There‘s no one single language that every developer absolutely must know. The skills and concepts you learn in one language will transfer to others. Focus on learning paradigms rather than just syntax. Each new language you learn will make you a more well-rounded developer and help you progress to the next level.

No matter how experienced you become, make continuous learning a priority throughout your career. The technology landscape is always evolving. Adopting a growth mindset and continually developing new skills will make you an indispensable part of any development team and give you a major edge in your career.