Just pick a thing you want to work on. If it's a website it's JS/TS, if it's a terminal app then python (or JS/TS). If it's a desktop app then I'd personally say C# but opinions vary wildly. If you want to do something embedded (microcontroller) then C, Zig or python. If it's a mobile app then Swift for iOS, Java/Kotlin for Android or Dart/Flutter.

Honestly, python is IMO the best to get going unless you want to make a website then it's JS/TS.

Web frameworks can be fun to learn but it might be a bit much to start out but making an Astro blog is easy and fun. If you want to spice it up to a Web app then I recommend Vue even though I work with angular and know react.

But yeah, I recommend python to most beginners unless you want your first thingy to be a website.

If you’re looking for something fun to write you might want Ruby. Literally built from the ground up with developer satisfaction as the primary goal.

Very expressive, plenty powerful. Not my absolute personal favorite but I can’t deny it’s satisfying to use.

Haskell or Clojure (or Common Lisp) if you want something weird but neat as alternatives.

since you mentioned Rust, it can also be a matter of how you approach learning it – maybe learning a game might be more comfortable – as an example, Reddit’s r/roguelikedev links to multiple tutorials in multiple languages (with at least three Rust based options):

• Roguelike Tutorial - In Rust – also available as a book if you want something more physical
• Roguelike Tutorial in Rust + tcod – uses libtcod from the original Python tutorials they started with
• Roguelike Tutorial 2020

So, if you're brand new and want to learn concepts of how to write code, I might suggest a game. There are a lot of programming games. Obviously it's never a one to one about learning something useful, and a lot of them even make "bad" things useful (though not bad enough to think it's going to teach you bad habits you won't be able to unlearn). I really enjoyed Exapunks, but it's sort of unrealistic. The Farmer Was Replaced looks fun as well and uses a "simple Python-like" language, but I haven't played it.

If you sort of already understand the concepts and want to dive into a real language, well, it's hard to say what will be fun. Chase your fun. It might be easier to think about what's not fun and avoid languages at the start that deal with that. For example, if setting up an environment to code in is the problem, then maybe something like JavaScript would be a good place to start. It runs in your browser! Press F12, click "console", type alert("Hello, World!"), boom, done, you just did Hello World in JavaScript without downloading anything at all.

take a look at one of the “fantasy consoles”, can do quick scripts and see results immediately:

• TIC-80 – primarily uses Lua but they’ve added in support for Ruby, JS, Moon, Fennel, Scheme, Squirrel, Wren, WASM, Janet, and Python as well
• uxn – virtual machine using uxntal, a kind of Forth/assembly hybrid

for an actual language, don’t discount Lua – simple, fast, tiny – “real programmers” like to ridicule it, and yet it keeps turning up everywhere from video game scripting to text editor configuration to databases to web servers

• Learn X in Y Minutes – a good introduction to a lot of languages, gives you a good idea of their look-and-feel
• Rosetta Code – LOTS of languages with LOTS of code examples

Logo. Turtle graphics spirographs go weeeeeeee!

At least, that's the most fun I had programming as a kid. There might be other good options nowadays, like Scratch or whatever they use to program those Lego robots.

If you really want to immerse yourself, also use it as the config. language for your Linux distribution.

Write GTK app.s with it.

Stretch your project legs with writing a simple web app. with it.

Explore the sheer joy and consummate beauty of minimal syntax.

C and assembly if you like learning how computers work

Python and typescript if you want to make blinky lights

Probably Python. It’s very accessible.

I had the most fun learning Haskell. Mostly because it was so different from the languages that I knew. Also, learning Lean was fun. But I guess that's kinda niche since it's not very relevant for anything but pure mathematics.

I am having the time of my life with Clojure. Lisps in general. They really change how you view software. I was showing how clojure works to my Java coworker and showing her the REPL and powers of Clojure, and we both almost teared up :)) It's tgat good.

Python is one of the more forgiving and extremely versatile.

I highly recommend checking out the game “The Farmer Was Replaced” on Steam as it might be the best way to introduce yourself to programming concepts outside of a classroom. (Not affiliated, just love the game XD)

Then in no particular order:

• Rust (and understand C++ and all interops)
• Typescript
• Bash
• DotNet (Java that works)

And as always - learning the anti patterns is more important than learning the patterns.

The most fun languages to learn that I have learned so far, are Haskell, Factor, Prolog and Agda. Each are quite different from mainstream programming and each other, and it is really satisfying when concepts "click"

Z80 assembly, nothing is as fun as getting back to basics. After I learnt Basic on my home computer back in 1984 I quickly branched out to assembly. My home computer had a Z80 cpu running the show. I had this book which introduced the basics and explained how to combine Basic and ASM code, so you could do neat tricks without needing to go full assembly right away. Of course there wasn't a compiler, just pages in the book showing the opcodes, their encoding and which code had what bit representation. So compiling was done by hand.

I miss those simpler times.

Fun? Lua, Odin, nim, zig.

Impractical? Brain fuck.

I see a lot of people recommending things that a beginner definitely isn't going to find fun. It's not fun to bang your head against problems before you even understand what is going on. If that sounds like you then you do not want to be touching anything like Rust, C, C++, etc. Some people are recommending Python. I strongly recommend against that. Yeah it's a simple language, but it breaks all conventions that other languages have set up. Whitespace, tooling, comprehensions. They're all different. You'll struggle with the terrible tooling, the whitespace syntax isn't used in any other popular languages, and the stuff that is in other languages is implemented completely differently.

I like Ruby for fun. It's an incredibly approachable language, it's extremely fun. The tooling is dead simple and works on every system out of the box. Of course everyone else in here is gonna recommend other different stuff, but I can tell you that I have developed professionally with both Ruby and Python for over a decade and the people suggesting Python have most likely not programmed with many other languages.

I'll give a second suggestion. I recently started learning Unity and it was a blast. It brought back that joy of programming for me. Of course, most of it isn't programming, but that might help things in your case. So maybe if you're looking for something that isn't so ... 'backend' then that might be what you want, a video game engine that can get you started easily.

Some others suggested esoteric or less used languages like Lisp or Forth, and I can't give any recommendations about those. Maybe you'll have fun with those, maybe you won't.

Finally, one last thing, you can compare a lot of languages to see what 'equivalents' would be with this tool. https://evmorov.github.io/lang-compare/ruby-python/ There's also https://codethesaur.us/, but it covers different bits and doesn't seem to have much for Ruby.