The CommonJS module system is really a step forward.

For the last two months I've been developing a webapp on Helma NG and I like it very much. Parts of the framework fit together nicely. The community on IRC is very helpful and provides answers in the rare cases where source code and documentations is not enough.

I also want to praise the project developers for their code quality -- even though I use a version from git I haven't had a single problem with frequent updating and re-building it.