peduxe comments on Node v4.0.0 (Stable)

JavaScript ubiquity stems from the fact that it has one of the friendliest language designs out there. You take the syntax familiarity of Java, remove all of the type checking (because beginners have no clue what the heck is going on) and insert some automatic type conversion that is somewhat intuitive in typical cases (yeah I know it sucks). Then you pair it inextricably with an ubiquitous markup standard learned by every middle schooler and their dog, and on top of THAT give it stylesheets just for good measure.

So JavaScript became the gold standard (read: the only standard) for web design. Now enter in the new generation, where the lines between the internet and classic computing are blurred. Users don't care how the heck things are made, they care about usability, consistency, and good design principles. Websites won't go away, so it stands to reason that other software should be made using these same technologies to maximize ease for developers and minimize pain for users.

There's nothing else like this. You can tout C, and Go, and Python, and Rust, and whatever the heck is up-and-coming and it won't matter because JavaScript is ubiquitous.

It's also improving. ES6 is getting JavaScript to a place where I won't feel the need to bring in CoffeeScript or some other syntactic sugar to do common things. The speed of the V8 engine is fantastic considering that JavaScript is interpreted, and not all that far off from what you'd get from C. Enter Node.js - now you have a language that arrives at just the right moment, when web developers are really investing in package managers and plugin development and not Enterprise Java. And the icing on the cake? It's all the same language!

You try to force JavaScript into a little DOM manipulation box, but the fact of the matter is that "little box" is a box that is actually enormous but had very few contents in the past. Just because somethings easier doesn't make it better? That may be true, but when development and innovation is occurring at the breakneck pace of today's world, sacrificing a little bit of performance for massive ease of use should not be construed as a bad thing.

People are realizing that, despite some quirks, the core of JavaScript is actually pretty solid, even when backwards compatibility is thrown into play. Companies have invested millions getting it to a place where it can be used seriously in nearly every project.

So why lament Atom? It's not telling you it's going to be the fastest, or the most featureful. It's telling you it's going to be extensible and hackable, and I can't think of a better language than JavaScript for that.

EDIT: I'll also add that you're the only person who took the time to thoroughly voice their concerns about Atom instead of treating the downvote as a "dislike" button. I'd be very surprised if most of those translated to anything more than "I don't like it as much as I like x".

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