> trying to understand how people can retroactively justify using that disgusting mess that is the Javascript syntax & ecosystem. Not your main point, but it's

> trying to understand how people can retroactively justify using that disgusting mess that is the Javascript syntax & ecosystem. Not your main point, but it's very simple: if you're building a web app (or interactivity on a web page), you don't have a choice as it's the only thing that runs on browsers. (Or did you mean "why wouldn't people use a better language that compiles down to javascript"? To which I'd reply: it's one more layer of abstraction, and depending on the scale of your project it might not be worth adding that extra layer.)