This was a disappointing article. Rather than focusing on the strengths of javascript, the author is trying to sell TypeScript. There are many compile-to-javascript languages, but the real strength lies within javascript itself.
In my experience, the JS ecosystem is really strong. v8 really pushed the performance bar, and the upcoming features (stuff like Buffers/Views for contiguous memory) make it possible to write programs that look and behave like C programs. The breadth and depth of nontrivial open-source projects and code segments is impressive, and the IRC communities are fairly vibrant.
I tried an arithmetic benchmark to compare JS performance between node.js and vert.x. As it turns out, the JS implementations under node.js even smokes the Java implementations!
In my experience, the JS ecosystem is really strong. v8 really pushed the performance bar, and the upcoming features (stuff like Buffers/Views for contiguous memory) make it possible to write programs that look and behave like C programs. The breadth and depth of nontrivial open-source projects and code segments is impressive, and the IRC communities are fairly vibrant.
I tried an arithmetic benchmark to compare JS performance between node.js and vert.x. As it turns out, the JS implementations under node.js even smokes the Java implementations!