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JavaScript is not designed for Server / runtime application programming. It is and always shall remain a UI language, and applications of JavaScript in other realms are not going to be able to offer the stability and reliability that could be offered by a dedicated programming language like Java, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Python, C, etc...

JavaScript may be the future of the web (sadly), but it is not the future of everything as this article may try to imply.

Why nobody remembers that Javascript was DESIGNED for the server-side (called Livescript, at Netscape) and only bolted on the browser as an afterthought?
DAS screencasts are really funny, but if you want to understand Javascript you should start from here: http://javascript.crockford.com/javascript.html

For example: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat

Remember when everyone hated JavaScript and disabled it in their browsers... yeah, those were the good days. :-)

JavaScript has a monopoly on browser programming because of a historical accident. It was the scripting language that came with the first mainstream web browser, Netscape.

Monopolies are not good. They bread stagnation and prevent innovation. The JavaScript monopoly goes against the fundamental ideas of openness and freedom that underly the success of the Internet.

Companies supporting the JavaScript monopoly do it for one reason: they know it's a poor language for serious large-scale client development. Can you guess which companies want to handicap and limit browser apps? Yes, it's Microsoft and Apple. The don't like browser apps. Every high-quality browser app makes their operating systems less important. Instead of great browser apps, MS and Apple want developers and users locked into proprietary native apps.

Some people working at Mozilla are also against breaking the JavaScript death-grip in the browser. While disappointing, it's understandable. JavaScript's infamous inventor, Brendan Eich, works at Mozilla. I guess it's too much to ask, for him to admit to how bad of a language JavaScript is, despite all the evidence.

Recently, the JavaScript monopoly is being challenged. For the majority of programmers, who don't like or want to use JavaScript, alternatives are increasing viable. GWT, Dart, and CoffeeScript are examples.

Microsoft, Apple, and Mozilla (as long as Eich is there) will keep trying to hold the Internet back by supporting a single, fatally flawed, browser programming language. Luckily, Google and others will eventually break the JavaScript monopoly. Then developers will have a real choi

I have to agree with devdanke. The only reason that JS is the standard for Html is that it's the only language for Html/Web. I don't see any advantages in that. There is no reason why we can't have other languages access the DOM.

Just make a standard on a the API and not the implementation (JS is the implementation). Create some standard byte code, so every language can be compiled to the byte code and be run in the browser. That way we can also use the well known tools (like Eclipse) to program web applications and we have access to the fast majority of libraries out there.

There are a couple of videos, the first two of the Crockford on Javascript series, that can give you a very well informed, precise and enlightening idea of why Javascript is where it is now and why is so quirky and patched-up. Free hint: Apple has no role in that. Microsoft was more involved, but it all started at Netscape.
Javascript is not a monopoly more that HTML is one. It's a standard (ECMAScript), with a sub-par spec and many bad parts, but not a monopoly. Anyone can write a good language and bytecode VM these days. The hard part is putting it into every browser and on every machine (and device). Google is taking its shot with Dart; Microsoft tried it in the heat of the browser wars with JScript and ActiveX, but failed.

History shows that the success of a programming language is only marginally correlated to it's technical qualities.
The post nowhere claims that JavaScript is a "good" language or that the recent hype is advancing our industry on a technical level.

ECMA script versions 5 and 6 are game changers