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Err.. Gmail.

You're grossly underestimating JavaScript.

With JavaScript its possible to break your code into logical abstractions, either functional or object oriented or a hybrid of the two.

What's stops you from writing maintainable JavaScript apps is perhaps the quality of devs.

Gmail is written in java and compiled to javascript via gwt. Doesn't count.

Gmail's backend is written in Java.

The frontend is written in Javascript, it has nothing to do with GWT.

Sorry, you are incorrect. GWT writing javascript is the whole point.

From the article: "The GWT compiler is really a Java source to JavaScript source translator."

Gmail is written using the Closure library:

I don't think GWT is being used for gmail.