> like Javascript, in many ways it's a neat little language, but manipulating the small little ad-hoc data structures (arrays and hashes, and combinations of them) that seems to be half of most programming tasks is definitely a step backwards compared to Python.

I'm a Python fan but I can't disagree more on that point. Python has terrible lambdas, and poor idioms when working with collections (list iteration over chainable/fluid interfaces).

Underscore.js, which at this point stands for 'idiomatic JS for collections', and the ES5 methods on arrays (filter/map) which are largely supported now provide a better way to handle arrays & hashes than idiomatic Python. With ES6 fat-arrow functions it's even better.

It's one of Python's biggest weaknesses when compared to other dynamic languages IMO -- that the idiomatic way to deal with 'collections' is not a chainable/fluid pattern, but instead to do multiple list comprehensions, or use the ugly filter-plus-lambda patterns which compose badly.

Double evens in a list:

ES6:

   [1, 2, 3]
       .filter(x => x % 2 == 0)
       .map(x => x * 2)

ES5:

   [1, 2, 3]
       .filter(function(x) { return x % 2 == 0 })
       .map(function(x) { return x * 2 })

Python:

    map(lambda x: x * 2,
        filter(lambda x: x % 2 == 0, [1, 2, 3]))

    # or
    evens = [x for x in [1, 2, 3] if x % 2 == 0]
    [x*2 for x in evens]

The ES6 & ES5 JS examples are both clearly superior syntax IMO. More readable and the anonymous functions support multi-line so extend to more use-cases.

EDIT: Removed the word 'objective' because I'm talking syntax.