All of those languages are useful in different situations. Python's very popular with scientists, ML engineers, and the like. Non-programmers who need to write programs love it because it's approachable and has a plugin for basically anything. It's my favorite language for writing tiny, one-off programs and doing hackathons and coding competitions and stuff. Java's the workhorse of the corporate world. If you're writing a giant application full of business logic for a big corporation, and you're gonna maintain it for two decades, Java's still the default choice. C++ is the most powerful option. If you need something to go as fast as it can go, C++ is your default choice. But whole types of bugs around stuff like memory that are basically impossible to cause in Python or Java are really easy to cause in C++, and its error messages aren't so much legible as they arSegmentation Fault (core dumped). You can go far with any of them, and there's a good chance you'll end up learning all three at some point. More on reddit.com

JavaScript doesn't have more uses than Python. Both can be used for pretty much anything and I'd argue there's more use cases Python is better suited for than vice versa. I'd say if you're going for web development, use JavaScript. If you're going for anything else, use Python. Except if you specifically want to write for OS stuff or embedded systems. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter which language you choose to learn first. More on reddit.com

Since you have used MATLAB and R, I would suggest Python. Python has data visualization libraries, numerical libraries, etc. So if your background is more into data related stuff, Python has stuff aimed at that community (why Python was picked is unclear, because it could have been Ruby). But Python can be used to make web applications, games (maybe not like C# or C++). It has object oriented features, etc. The main complaint is that it's slow compared, say, C++. Try not to pigeonhole languages for one purpose. C# was developed because Microsoft was told to stop their work on Java, so they built a Java clone. They didn't think "Oh, this is just like Java, so we shouldn't bother creating this language". People often write languages because this feature or that feature annoys them, and they want to "fix" it with something better. Arguably, Java was created because people thought C++ was too complex and that maybe it was time for a non-functional programming language to use a garbage collector. They went through features they felt were creating complications in C++ (multiple inheritance, pass-by-value, memory allocation, etc) and cleaned it up (although Java is a pretty verbose language). It's just like if you wanted to buy a Honda vs a Toyota. These car manufacturers don't decide to create vehicles that fulfill a niche. To some extent, that can be true of languages. Even the idea of a programmer sitting down to do a project and "picking an appropriate" language doesn't always happen. If your group is good with Python, then they might not bother with doing the code in Java or C++. With whatever limitations a language has, familiarity with how it works is often more important. Also, although people love languages, there's more to programming than learning a language. More on reddit.com

I know it is a kind of broad question but any answer are appreciated. More on stackoverflow.com