In short: * It has C-like syntax with cool features like prototypical inheritance, an excellent object-literal format, first-class functions, and closures. *

In short: * It has C-like syntax with cool features like prototypical inheritance, an excellent object-literal format, first-class functions, and closures. * Everyone knows it (or thinks they do). * There are some really smart people in multiple different camps working on making extremely fast interpreters. Still skeptical about JS as a general purpose language? Watch Doug Crockford's "Javascript: The Good Parts". If he can't convince you, no one can. http://video.yahoo.com/watch/630959/2974197 http://video.yahoo.com/watch/630959/2974197