Why has Javascript been (mostly) only a browser-side technology for more than 10 years?

Question

Recently there is a lot of projects that pushes Javascript into other directions: as a general purpose scripting language (GLUEScript, Rhino), as an extension language (QTScript, Adobe Reader, OO Macros), Widgets (Yahoo Widgets, MS Gadgets, Dashboard), and even server-side JS & web frameworks (CommonJS, Helma, Phobos, V8cgi), which seems obvious since it is already a language widely used for web development.

But wait, everything is so new and nothing is really mature. However JS is around for almost 15 years, being as powerfull as any other scripting languages, being standardised by the ECMA, and being a mandatory technology for web development.

Why did it take so much time to gain acceptance into other domains than web browsers?

Answer 1

Douglas Crockford, who has done much to help people use JavaScript productively, also has a very clear picture of the things that hold JavaScript back. You can pick up a few of the points at JavaScript: The World's Most Misunderstood Programming Language. See also his lecture series Crockford on JavaScript.

Answer 2

The proliferation of Javascript as a viable language for heavy applications development isn't as old as the langauge itself... atleast it's definitely more recent than 15 years.

Mainly, it's popular and heavily-utilized right now due to the proliferation of AJAX and frameworks like jQuery/mootools/protoypes/scriptaculous and largely because browsers support is improving in compatibility, performances and whatnot.

Take, for example, Node.js which is built on V8 (which didn't exists until Google made Chrome) which strikes up the javascript performance bar so high that you can make high-performance networked applications on top of it dead easy.

So, IMO, it's because people jumped on the AJAX bandwagon that made JavaScript now suddenly becomes so much more awesome and spanning out to other areas.