[orangecat]

I can't believe people still bash JavaScript.

I can't believe people actually like it. It might be understandable if you're comparing it to enterprisey Java, but I'm baffled that anyone could prefer ES5 to Python or Ruby. (I will acknowledge that ES6 puts it somewhere in the area of Python 2.5).

It's an incredibly powerful, expressive language.

Not if you want super advanced features like a hashtable with non-string keys, or checking if two objects are equal.

It lets you do stuff like redefine entire objects, properties or methods at runtime (for stubbing).

As does any other dynamic language.

Also, JS is great for writing asynchronous logic.

As is any other language with first-class functions. And with others you don't have to do silly contortions to work around JavaScript's broken "this".

I think its a shame that some people just didn't seriously try JavaScript.

Tried it, have written it professionally for many years, and as a result am very much looking forward to WebAssembly.

[spion]

An interesting aspect which JS has and other languages don't is the "objects are hashes" notion. Combined with TypeScript / Elm / PureScript's ability to write and check the types of these (especially Elm before the refactor that removed the add/delete field features), this is very powerful. I often wish Haskell's built in records were as powerful as Elm's / PureScript's, but wonder if thats doable in an efficient way without the JIT logic in engines like V8.

Also, there is something to the whole "modules are records/hashes" idea which is quite elegant, IMO. I'm not sure why we still put up with the idea that the module system needs to be a whole different language with different rules. But I'm not sure if there is a type system capable of modelling this very well.

[fanf2]

Are there any dynamic languages in which objects are not hashes?

[hawkice]

Ruby -- object data is all private, and the reader/writer/attr things just make the getters and setters for you.

[spion]

Python is another example. You can assign dynamic properties, but there is no object literal syntax