If one of these hundred alternative languages that compiles to JavaScript takes off ( https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-lang... ) AND has features that would benefit from a better underlying "assembly" language (like Dart from Google, Typescript from Microsoft, or asm.js from Mozilla), then I would say Javascript's days are either numbered, or it will finally adopt static typing, as was proposed a decade ago for JavaScript 2.0 or ES4 or whatever: http://www-archive.mozilla.org/js/language/js20-2000-07/libr... http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/rg38/2.ht... http://www.ecmascript.org/es4/spec/overview.pdf