Because I’m in my very early 20s I missed out on the huge Java craze. Everything was Python when I started getting a more formal education and before then all my work was in C++. Knowing more languages would obviously look better on a CV but I mean if I would benefit in a practical sense? I have two friends who are long time Java devs. And recently another friend who generally works with legacy C++ based systems from the early 2000s late 90s period had to work on a bunch of stuff in Java. Java is clearly still in large scale use among older systems. So would it be likely that eventually I would need to work on Java systems myself when my job is mostly JavaScript currently?
Depends on industry really. You will find Java everywhere, so having knowledge of it will help you just about anywhere. For example payment industry, Android native development, etc. Mostly older codebases will be in Java, but you can find new projects too. Java tends to be used by bigger corporations, so it’s almost always a bloated mess.
Python is heavily used in machine learning, which is the next hot thing, so it’s a safe bet too. And it’s a very beautiful language, even if it’s not the fastest.
I would try to get away from JS, because it has the lowest barrier of entry, and the most developers, so it’s very competitive and lower paid than the other languages you mentioned. But it’s the gold standard in front-end, so if you like that you can learn React or Vue. You can also incorporate Typescript if you want to.
I wouldn’t try to get into C++ either. Rust and Go are gaining traction in the same areas that would have used C++ traditionally, so I think either of those are a good fit if you want to do exclusively backend work.
What kind of industry or area are you interested in?
Current Android native development is C++/Java, with the Java being slowly replaced by Kotlin.
I don’t know if I exactly have an interest. I love reverse engineer and hacking work but that’s probably better as a hobby due to it being so specific. I’m in uni for Cyber Security so preferebly any language related to that. I mostly work with JavaScript just because I do a lot of Web Dev and server side code. C++ was for game modding stuff. I have been looking at Rust for a while and what I’ve done I found to be easier than C++. And am planning to do future projects in Rust. Mainly game dev stuff. Which again tends to be better as a hobby over a job. But it translates over to other things.