[curun1r]

It's certainly been my experience that there are a lot of JS developers who aren't like you, though I have met a few who are. But JS has traditionally been one of the most accessible languages. Before transpilers became common, view source allowed non-programmers to learn javascript by example. And because of it's use in the front-end/web, you saw a lot graphic designers and other non-programmers learn it to be able to put something online. Javascript also goes out of its way to be friendlier. While other languages complain when you try to add two different width integers, Javascript will happily add a number and a string together. It's something that drives those of us with a static typing background nuts, but makes the language more approachable overall.

It's certainly a tired narrative that a lot of the churn in the front-end javascript framework world comes from developers who aren't aware of well-recognized patterns and techniques from other languages. But stereotypes and tired critiques almost always have some basis in reality and it does seem like the JavaScript world is rediscovering a few lessons the hard way rather than learning from the experience of other language communities.

[noxToken]

> Javascript also goes out of its way to be friendlier. While other languages complain when you try to add two different width integers, Javascript will happily add a number and a string together. It's something that drives those of us with a static typing background nuts, but makes the language more approachable overall.

We have differing definitions of friendly. Since I understand types and operator overloading, I know that 1 and "1" are different. I also know that the operator + does traditional math addition and concats Strings. If I didn't, it would probably drive me bonkers that "1" + 1 is "11" in JS instead of 2 or even "2". Having knowledge about types and overloading automatically tells me that String + Int = String.

I'm not saying that JS is bad since it lacks static typing. I'd argue that lack of static typing makes a language tougher to learn rather than more approachable. The barrier of entry is lower, but makes comprehension tougher.

[curun1r]

> I'd argue that lack of static typing makes a language tougher to learn rather than more approachable

I think it's a bit of a wolf in sheep's clothing. It makes it harder to master, but less intimidating when you're first starting out.

Also, I probably shouldn't have used the term static typing, since the issues I'm talking about are more associated with weak typing rather than dynamic typing.