"Given the lax nature of JavaScript, it's easy for your application to spiral into a mess of unmaintainable spaghetti code."
Let's not forget: it's entirely possible to create a mess of unmaintainable code in any language. Or, "guns don't kill people, people kill people"
The other half of this complaint i think is somewhat elitist (unwittingly so?) and it seems to do with the notion that because there is a such a low barrier to entry, that much js code is cargo-culted, but i've seen this from developers in every language. What I find even worse than cargo-cult code is Pattern Zealots going about specifically coding up Pattern X in javascript. It's like they studied Design Patterns but the point of it just went over their heads.
Knowing the principles of software development doesn't prevent you from making ridiculous decisions[1]. It seems like everyone wants checklists of coding standards or something for measuring code quality / standards compliance these days in js. But these are hollow measures if the code behind the module/black box/library is just plain wrong.
Maybe i'm missing something here, but why is this article getting voted up?
[1]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1635800/javascript-best-s... (found when googling 'javascript singleton')