Good advice, rarely said.

However (there's always a however) some languages are more useful for multiple purposes than others. For example you can get a long way with JavaScript and, while it's not my favorite by far, you can write web apps, desktop apps (with Electron) and mobile apps (with PhoneGap although they are not very good). You can even use emscripten to convert some of your favorite C, C++, Java, Python etc. libraries to JavaScript (with some expert level tweaking but at least it's possible), if you even need them, as there is a crazy amount of stuff on npmjs to play with.

Another however: beginners need to wrestle with "modern" (i.e. 30+ year old) concepts and understand them properly if they're going to get anywhere. OOP and functional programming are needed today. But even more basic is procedural thinking, which mercifully can be learned by doing.

Thanks for the fresh perspective 😎