JS, while flawed, has some beauty to it that you don't really find in most more established languages. It doesn't require memorizing a huge number of language

JS, while flawed, has some beauty to it that you don't really find in most more established languages. It doesn't require memorizing a huge number of language features in order to write the majority of your code. You don't need to know the nuances of equality by reference upfront, or details about OOP. You have your operators and basic control flow, and you can go to town with them & be quickly rewarded. As you get into more complex needs, the language doesn't get in your way for the most part. It still offers a mechanism of OOP via prototypical inheritance, and functions are first class citizens so you can pass them around and meet your functional programming needs. JS is not without its flaws - however, it is the easiest major language to get people productive in without a programming background, and slowly bring them along at their own pace in order to build a solid foundation.