pros

Lets say what we like about programming languages for a change.

C: Very fast and simple syntax.
C++: Has some useful standard libraries that C doesn't have, like vector and map.
Java: Has a very good garbage collector.
Lisp: You can make intersting self-modifying programs with macros.
PHP: Is one of the more readable scripting languages
Python: The forced indentation of code is an interesting idea
Ruby: no comment

C: A simple representation of a turing machine. Small number of operations and types, but sometimes simple is all that's needed.

Java: Knows what it wants to be. Object Oriented from the ground up.

Perl: Language level integration with regular expressions and the shell can make writing scripts for some tasks blindingly fast.