[chc]

I very rarely have problems with JavaScript scoping or any of those obvious gotchas, but I still don't agree that they are good. We've just become acclimated to the language's eccentricities, the same way people living in Arizona for a long time think California summers are chilly.

It is true that JavaScript's scoping rules are pretty simple, but less is not always more. Once you have learned all the patterns and gotchas, JavaScript's scoping is quite usable. But the fact that you have to use patterns where you wouldn't in another language means JavaScript is making work for you. If JavaScript had Lispy macros or some other way of altering the language, I might be more inclined to agree that the fundamental simplicity is a good thing, but without that power, the simplicity means that when you're doing complex things, the complexity missing from the language has to be written out explicitly in your code. Right now a lot of JavaScript code is a mix of function pasta and things that should be function pasta but the coder couldn't be bothered.

[telent]

Yes. "let x=1" is quite clearly syntactic sugar for "(lambda(x) { ... rest of block here ... })(1)" so while you might argue that it's unnecessary (I'd disagree, but it's a respectable argument), you can't realistically claim that it would be adding a layer of complexity. The complexity is there already: the sugar is just encapsulating in a more eyeball-friendly format