I've always been a JS hater, though I have to code it frequently.. However, with that said I find the arguments against the language becoming more and more obsolete as the years go on.
The best FE devs make sure that they create functioning web pages first. Then they go ahead and make them better with some JS. Only the least competent/laziest developers create JS only sites (this is discounting things like JS games etc where there's no text or images, or pretty much anything that can be done in HTML).
I find it frustrating when these devs try to paint the web as something more advanced, or somehow different (seriously, it's not a special snowflake) in order to try to validate their preferred way of working. It's unprofessional to their employers, it's a disservice to themselves and it's a big "screw you!" to their users.
For people with powerful smartphones and reliable internet, this may be true.
Let me point you to: https://danluu.com/web-bloat/ (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13601451 )
Now add the fact that:
- the ecosystem is exploding like a holy grenade, only not as funny
- having to learn what "rebinding this in the closure's callback" is still core to the path to the language understanding.
- you have so many ways to do things, especially asynchronously, and yet no simple way to do simple stuff like removing an item from an array
- pre-processors are used everywhere and you have so many of them
- safari is becoming the new IE6
We are still very much paying the price of the terrible language that is Javascript.
The article shows quite nicely that it's completely possible to create great websites without the requirement for JS to work well. Make it an enhancement and your users will love you for it. Make your users love you, and your employer/client will love you as well.
"I’m a 30-something woman living in Berlin, Germany (the famous one, with the wall and stuff)."
I take this to extreme on mobile apps, only native ones get into my devices. If it looks like a web widget after being installed, it gets the boot shortly afterwards.