JavaScript is successful for several reasons: * It compiles on the fly (and extremely quickly at that) * It runs almost everywhere and JavaScript interpreters

JavaScript is successful for several reasons: * It compiles on the fly (and extremely quickly at that) * It runs almost everywhere and JavaScript interpreters (plural) are on almost every modern computer * It is multi-paradigm. This means the language can be structured in a OOP way somewhat like a Java program, or (thank god) you can avoid all of that nonsense. * The language is extremely forgiving, which makes it extremely sloppy but very cozy for amateur programmers * The most important part (and least understood) is that it features concepts that make programming fun: functions as first-class citizens and native lexical scope (without some conventional bullshit like a lambda expression)