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That points to the underlying problem: a crap standard library. If extremely common functionality has to be outsourced to (short but) completely non-obvious third party modules, the standard library has failed at its core task.

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JavaScript is in a situation different than most other languages. Any addition to the standard library has to be implemented by every browser on earth, and that's already unsustainable. Any imperfections or mistakes in the standard library (we are still distraught with the Referer bs) can't ever be fixed as all code has to be perpetually working.

ECMAScript has gone through many revisions since its inception, so it is clearly possible to modify the language.

That's just an excuse and a poor one at that. Many languages (C, Fortran, C++) have multiple implementations and don't get to fix design flaws in the standard library; JavaScript is not unique in these requirements.

The only special thing about JavaScript is that after 25+ years the standard library is still grossly inadequate.

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