Exactly, where I work we have a few projects using Grunt for development tools. No other server-side JavaScript, but it could count as a NodeJS/JavaScript user if it was on GitHub.
Considering the value we place on javascript I dont see why we couldnāt have at least a strongly typed language in that niche. Less convenient for really small things but javascript has outgrown that application now.
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we do, TypeScript, and it compiles to regular javascript. Iāve been using it on a fairly large project recently and it works quite well. lots of the features in there will find their way into ecmascript eventually, not sure about the strong typing though, but as long as you can add it as an optional pre-compilation step it isnāt really necessary (there are already other ways to add runtime type meta-data for example).
According to Futurama, you can code an entire virtual reality pony, and some idyllic virtual reality environments for that pony with just Four million lines of BASIC.
Also, āholoshedsā use BASIC.
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I once wire wrapped a PDP 11/84 backplane, flat on my back under the CPU draw but I donāt count it as programming experience.
^ Said the dinosaur, as the world continued its march away from low-level programming.
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I think we can all agree, popularity is not correlated with quality.
Obviously you donāt work on servers. 
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Youāre talking about Perl, right?
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Because we donāt already have it and JS was and is first out of the gate within browsers, giving it a huge advantage.
My entire day job is a C++ runtime that runs JS on top of it to do most of the work and run the UX with a side dish of a few third party C and C++ libraries. You call it āFirefox.ā
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Is there any better explanation than javascript = web?
NodeJs - itās made JS easily usable on the server, and so powering a whole bunch of services and apps that never need a web-component. I use it for text processing.
As OtherMichael said, a lot of it is probably Node.JS
Where be all the BB Lisp weenies? Yāall need to get with the parens.
Theyāre too busy trying to write an AI.
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Someone mentioned TypeScript already, thereās also Haxe, which is another typed ECMAscript dialect.
Thereās also Emscripten, which lets you develop in C/C++ (or any other language that compiles to LLVM) and compiles into executable Javascript. All the convenience of header files combined with the pleasant debugging experience of unreadable javascript.
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Hmm, actually this seems as good a place as any to ask. For someone who rarely does web stuff but occasionally has Big Stupid Ideas, is Node.js worth learning?
Iām ambivalent about Javascript as a language but given its popularity it seems like itāll stick around quite a while.
According to whom? By popularity, it clearly is.
I thought Haskell was the next big thing.
I have been deceived.
Itās easier to learn than Lisp, there are lots of modern tutorials, and you can use it on the command line, on the server, and in the client.
Thereās also lots of antique crap out there drowning out the good modern usage, although it is disappearing. The Mozilla Developer Network is a great resource.
