What programming language should I learn?

Question

OK, I was a bit of a programmer long ago.  I was an engineering student and worked in high tech.  I did some programming at work (no big projects) mostly in C, but also some Pascal, Fortran and assembly.  I was pretty good at it, but that was 18 years ago.

I switched majors and became a professional musician.  I'm going to be working on a cruise ship again so I will have lots of free time.  Is there a language that I can teach myself that is in demand?  Something that would not require a lot of certifications?  Something that I could do as part-time freelance work?

I do some HTML, but that isn't useful enough.  I've done some PHP and a tiny bit of Javascript.  I've dabbled in C++.

Any ideas?  I'll probably be moving to Italy if that matters.  It would be nice if it was work I could do over the internet.

Regards,
Kevin Smith

Answer 1

From the languages that you already have, your best bet as a new skill, due to it being the most popular language you do not already have, is Java.

Answer 2

Well if you get a little better in your Javascript, PHP, HTML and learn some swf. Then I would have to say your ready for doing some freelancer projects