Here’s a different perspective. Look for a language that
- has some other people - either local or on line, but trustable either way - that are also using the language and can help solve problems or critique code. Both spoken and computer languages are all about reducing and rearranging complex ideas into a more structured format. Neither can be learned well in a vacuum.
- Has a decent base of reference solutions and readily available style guides
- is not dependent on a particular IDE. Ideally, it could be written using Netbeans or command line on a linux system as easily as with Eclipse on Windows or (name your favorites). It’s easy to think that the development environment features are part of the language. They are not. (FWIW, I’ve been doing software for money since the 80’s, and have had some time to ponder this while waiting for compiles).
The language itself really doesn’t matter - the software engineer adds value by doing the mental exercise of translating the idea from one paradigm (the ether) into something concrete and reproducible. For example, I got my first embedded C job after telling the interviewer that I’d never written C for money. “Well, you know how to program; you can figure out the implementation language.” He was right. For my part, I’d much rather work with a fresh out of school kid who really grooves on solid programming concepts but knows only perl than one who knows a dozen languages but has horrible style and never uses functions or subroutines.
If you think about it as an idea translation exercise, ask yourself whether the interpreter that “got” the subtle parts of German, for example, had a better future than the one who’d memorized the same 95 words in six different languages.
I’m hoping to get my kids hooked on Harvard’s CS50 lectures and problem sets. It’s in straight up C, but I really like what I’ve seen in the 4-5 lectures I’ve watched so far and yes, I’m doing the problem sets; it’s fun!
Not saying this is the only way, just my opinion, and worth no more than you paid for it.