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Everybody thinks they know javascript, but on the contrary nobody actually knows it. It's a very twisted and powerful language. It has many quirks and many unknowns.

Most of the time if one thinks s/he knows javascript, actually s/he knows a higher level abstraction library and DOM built on javascript like Jquery.

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Some people do know javascript. Implementations differ, but are getting more standardized as time goes on. Without the DOM and browser environment APIs, it gets a lot simpler. Do you think fewer people actually know javascript than actually know C++?

C++ is a bad example. C itself is mindblowinly complex, and C++ layers more on top of that. A better example might be Python, or possibly Lua. Languages that have been designed, rather than grown organically, unlike C++/C/Javascript.

C++ was grown organically? I think Bjarne Stroustrup would disagree.

By that I'd mean the way more and more complexity has been layered on over the years.

Of course some people do know Javascript inside out, but how many?

Yeah, but a basic level of javascript is often all that's necessary.

I had quite a few non-developers on my team, who knew enough javascript to have a "good enough" idea what was going on with the code, without having to bug me all the time.

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