What's the best programming language to learn when you're just starting out?

ok well first you really need to assess how much you know about computers. Very little? Then it's best to start in English and learn word, excel, PowerPoint, access.
Now if you're a bit more educated to the level of knowing the first method of trouble shooting is always turn it of and back on again then follow these.

This day and age I always have people go ahead and start out light in Java and objective-c. Both for app development which is the going trend so people are commonly already "familiar"

But to get deeper into it and start doing some real work I recommend a two parter. Grabbing a Linux OS and going for Python. Although spreading your skills is wise. c, Java, c#, perl, and ruby are all very similar in but putting them on your tool belt opens up your marketable variety.

But the most important language out there. That I advise people to get a solid understand of, almost everyone's foundation; effective coding in C.

C is the I believe the most important and widely used programming language. The common understanding is C is the basic "machine level" languages. With a good hold on that moving up isn't going to be an option.

It can be a struggle though. Many many late nights of debugging and many a time I felt like throwing my machine off the roof. An unforgiving stricter code with a steep learning curve

But going at it first is much like BCT it'll teach you the discipline to be successful in coding but you have also accept you'll have to learn a whole lot to make anything useful.

I don't think I answered your question but hopefully you got some knowledge.

That depends entirely on what you want to accomplish. If you want guaranteed employment, Java is very safe. If you want to work with numbers and or at Google, Python. If you want to build UI, you'll have no choice to learn either JavaScript for web, Objective C or Swift for Apple's platform, Java for Android, or JavaScript for the web.

I started with PHP 14 years ago. I haven't used it in years. But it got me where I needed to go. I would say that is more useful: Figure out where you need to go.

Like many have already said, it depends. It depends on what kind of development you want to do, and more importantly what your target employer uses.

Until you have landed that position that allows you to focus one a handful of languages I highly suggest you try to become fluent in multiple languages; heck we should all be doing that anyways.

With that in mind I would suggest at least Java and C#. If you plan to focus on web development you should add JavaScript, CSS, and HTML to that mix.

Some more advice is to attend user group meetings in your area. Normally these are sponsored by recruiters like TekSystems who can tell you what employers are looking for in your area. Again, don't limit yourself yet, that will come when you have the position and you are doing your best to really learn what the employer uses.