I can understand the motivation. But not sure if I want to be surrounded by hardware powered by software written by people who think that Javascript is actually a good programming language.

I'm one of those who think Javascript is a good programming language (or at least I'd prefer it to any functional language).

Javascript is basically Scheme/Self with a C-based syntax[1][2], and both Scheme and Self are well regarded.

It has a bad reputation because of the terrible code people write using it in web browsers, but as languages go, it's pretty nice.

Browser/DOM APIs OTOH are historically pretty awful.

I suspect many of those who think it is terrible do so based n language snobbery, or they cannot separate the language from what it has been used for.

I may well be wrong, though - what actually makes it a bad language in your opinion?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript

[2] http://www.ecmascript.org/es4/spec/overview.pdf

That meme "Javascript is basically Scheme with a C based syntax" has been refuted so many times it's not even funny. Does it have a metacircular evaluator? Is it homoiconic? Does it have macros? Seriously, read SICP or some other Lisp book. You have no idea what you are talking about.

Take it up with Brendan Eich:

Remember, I was recruited to "do Scheme", which felt like bait and switch in light of the Java deal brewing by the time I joined Netscape. My interest in languages such as Self informed a subversive agenda re: the dumbed down mission to make "Java's kid brother", to have objects without classes. Likewise with first-class functions, which were inspired by Scheme but quite different in JS, especially JS 1.0.[1]

I presume you saw the word basically in my post? There's no doubt it is simplified, but that's a strength as well as a weakness.

But anyway:

A metascircle evaluator: https://github.com/mozilla/narcissus

It's not Homoiconic, and nor does it have macros - but a number of the languages the OP named as "good" languages lack both these features too.

I stand by my point: Javascript is a perfectly good language.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2786720