Can it really be called the wrong tool when so many huge businesses and essentially the entire globe are powered by it? It’s certainly worked imo
JavaScript's ubiquity has everything to do with its monopoly in the browser, and nothing to do with any specific features of the language.
But Javascript has grown into a language that makes some solid and unique trade-offs including its simple single-threaded concurrency, modern language features, async-everything, first-class Promise, and Typescript.
"Javascript sucks and people only use it because they have to" is both wrong and boring. We, as a community, have to stop trotting out this tired comment any time a submission has the word Javascript in it.
Single-threaded + async-everything is a unique and powerful feature of Javascript. You might not like it every time, but it's useful most of the time. Most other languages make it easy to write single-threaded but blocking code where you need to reach for an extra solution to write async code, and not everyone needs to even use the same solution, and it doesn't necessarily work with the default blocking ecosystem.
We take that for granted in Javascript.
Once again, this is a very tired thread. Sometimes you just have to admit there are trade-offs and that you aren't going to have a taste for every decision on every trade-off every time. And that's okay.
Nobody in this thread is even interacting with TFA.
I agree with above comments that you could have taken any language. But you have a point, making async mandatory is a powerful thing.
This could have been done to any language tho, Java, TCL, Scheme, whatever.
IMO Tcl would have been a vastly preferable choice for a browser scripting language. Text is its native data type, and would have minimized impedance mismatches with other functional areas of the text-based HTML/HTTP environment. Also it would have been far easier for newbies to get started with web script hacking. At the time JavaScript seemed like alien algebra to a lot of non-computer science majors.
If you look at the post I replied to, I was countering the idea that "JavaScript must be good because lots of people use it". JavaScript is popular today because it was popular yesterday, and the roots of that chain is JavaScript was popular in late 90's because it was your only real choice.
I've used actually bad languages professionally. JavaScript today is merely mediocre, thanks to nearly 30 years of fixing. But it's still held back by its roots of being kinda awful. There are unambiguously better choices for non-browser codebases, unless "whatever is popular" is a primary driver.
I totally get this sentiment because I feel it myself with some topics. But to give you another perspective: the comment and issue keeps coming up because in the eyes of some (many?) the problem hasn’t been solved.
It’s like I’m getting pin pricked every day so I keep complaining about it.
I'm not sure how someone's statement of personal motivation can be wrong? Here is mine: JavaScript doesn't suck. However I personally do "only use it because I have to", i.e. because of the browser support. Nothing more. Where's the "wrong" in that? I'm not lying to you. I promise.
And JavaScript isn't alone! There are many more languages I think are simply okay, and don't suck. Several of those I have used professionally because I had to, but would not choose them for a personal project. I would also use them if they were all a web browser ecosystem supported.
And just because something is ubiquitous doesn't mean there doesn't exist anything better.
Businesses/industries being huge does not indicate whether a tool/method/approach is high-quality.
Terminal apps, trading algos, operating systems, compilers, embedded, databases, etc etc.
JS is never the best tool for the job. But sometimes, it's the only one.