the fact that "javascript sucks" wasn't the point of the essay is EXACTLY my point - in an article that should be about calling out bad practices in designing w

the fact that "javascript sucks" wasn't the point of the essay is EXACTLY my point - in an article that should be about calling out bad practices in designing web client experiences, there are judicious sprinklings of criticism of the underlying language, without attempting to distinguish those harms from the harms of bad choices in implementation. that sort of conflation is intellectually sloppy and ultimately leads to both sides 'reflexively' responding. I'll definitely agree that javascript has room for improvement, but i'm not sure by what objective standard you're measuring its design chops. If you consider the goal of JS to be an incredibly flexible, light language with powerful runtime dynamicism and a strong focus on client-only needs, I'd say it's fairly well-designed. If you're holding it up against python as a server scripting language, it probably doesn't quite measure up. and if you're holding it up against all other languages and measuring by some 'general-purpose utility' ruler, that's a pretty pointless exercise - as I said in my original comment, languages are designed to solve specific problems, and JS is no exception.