> And this is why Javascript can be such an awful language. Leaving off a single equals has such a profound effect, often without a new coder even realizing it while reading the code.

You get used to this as you get seasoned with javascript. Every language has it's quirks. The human brain is remarkably adaptable to using tools & dealing with intricacies. I personally utilize & appreciate the difference between == and === to reduce complexity in the code. I assume the reader also understands such differences.

I also find automated testing, logging, a module system like commonjs, and linters to be useful when programming in javascript. Once these are in place, systems written in javascript are remarkably maintainable & scale with complexity.