[hipsters_unite]

In all fairness though, it's very easy to bash JS, but the anonymous functions etc., that are really core to the language are pretty powerful. I used to hate it a lot more than I do now, but one day I realized that apart from its more patchy areas (no strftime, what?), it actually covers off a lot of coding styles and patterns you need in order to get stuff done.

[cognivore]

Functions being first class citizens are all JavaScript really has going for it (that and a captive audience), and any new web oriented language could incorporate that as well as improvements over JavaScript's awful everything else.

Not that JavaScript isn't useful - it is, and it does allow you to get things done. But imagine the uncountable number of man years that have been wasted coping with JavaScript when it's clearly obvious that something better would have made our jobs a lot easier.

[hipsters_unite]

Yeah true, I think you've hit the nail on the head - much as I sometimes wish something like Python were the standard instead, the lambda functions are fiddly (even if the list comprehensions are great).