JavaScript is just a tool, like any other. And it's a very important one like it or not. And like it or not it's going to stay here for a long time.
Just have a bit of an open mind and try to learn the basics at least, it will make things easier.
The idea to have a node_modules that has tens of thousands of folders/files for the simplest package that I needed to install. Ruby has gems, but they have few files, I can easily know where to go to understand how something works or add a debugger.
But just trying to read the name of all those seemed for me always like a task that I dont want to do.
The language itself letting aside some warts is good, can be enjoyed and good code maybe can be written.
My last sentence on the parent message was directed to the comment I was replying to (which said they couldn't set up node properly).
What I do think is that there's a huge % of Rails devs that hate on JavaScript as if it were some kind of enemy to beat or something, and often that leads to people not wanting to learn it properly.
Luckily, I no longer need a PhD in webpack or node packages in order to run rails s successfully.