I'm familiar with JS' warts, which can be avoided. At the same time JS has e.g. functions as first class objects, few and simple types, object and array literal

I'm familiar with JS' warts, which can be avoided. At the same time JS has e.g. functions as first class objects, few and simple types, object and array literals, and a prototype based OO. This makes its semantic more elegant and simple than some other mainstream languages, like e.g. C++, Java or C#, IMHO.