As a casual js user (I build some static sites for fun and personal use), I am under the impression that JavaScript “sucks” mostly because some things really make it look like JavaScript was invented as a quick scripting tool rather than the backbone of the WWW.

I’ll bring an example that maybe helps me learning someting. Why in javasctipt “1” == 1? I know the === operator exists, but why isn’t the default behaviour the safer one? Especially when the mantra is “don’t trust the user”.

Like, I get, I am a strongly-typed guy, but I see why weakly-type languges exists, but this feel frankly moronic, and all the answers I’ve seen are " because that’s how it is". That’s just copium.

Like, you're not entirely wrong here. The == vs === is entirely just a legacy of a poor early decision in the language's development.

However, the reason that it's still there isn't just "because that's how it is", it's to maintain backwards compatibility. You could break the language and change your equality operators to something more sensible, but to do so would result in:

• A) If you make a new language that compiles to Javascript (like Typescript for instance), you can maintain compatibility, but you do now need to build a bunch of tooling around compilers and debugging so that you can trace errors in the compiled and running javascript back to your own code. In any situation where you have a codebase that contains a mix of the two, you've got to remember and stay on top of which to use where.
• Or B) If you make a new dedicated language that runs in browsers, now browsers need to ship two engines, one for legacy javascript web sites and apps, and one for whatever your new language is. Same issues with mixing legacy and new code.

OR the real answer is C) devs just add linters that check your code for common mistakes. All modern javascript dev environments will include a linter that yells at you if you accidentally use the == sign, right in your IDE as you type it, making it not really a big deal, and autocomplete will automatically use ===.

And maintaining backwards compatibility for the Internet / World Wide Web, is probably the single most important place to maintain backwards compatibility, as it is effectively a continuous archive of information and publications. Putting up with === is honestly not that big of a deal in the context of all the above.

Like, I get, I am a strongly-typed guy, but I see why weakly-type languges exists,

I got my start with Java and C#, then Python, then Javascript, then Typescript / etc. etc. Trust me, I vastly prefer a good type system, which is why I use Typescript for everything I can these days. It is still technically weakly typed in that you don't get type errors at runtime, just at compile time, but it still makes coding in javascript soooo much nicer and more pleasant and more predictable, and it's quite frankly the most flexible and easy to use Type system / syntax of any language that I've used.

Also when I tried to compile a single Cordova app to play around I needed some 5GB of npm modules that totalled ~200k files! Is that how modern app development is like?

I mean, Cordova is not just a web app platform. That's including the toolchain to build a web app, but also do compile it into an Android app, or to compile it into an iOS app. You've basically got large chunks of the android and ios sdks in there.

Also, the particular webpage OP linked might be a little extreme, but modern software does suck ass, and is not user-friendly nor efficient.

Just look at mobile communication apps, like Teams. The user experience is terrible, the UI is unrespive, the battery drain is crazy and it takes 800MB of space.

Yes, because of corporate practices that prioritize feature development instead of addressing tech debt or performance. But that's not always the case. I worked at Meta for a stint as a contract developer, I've seen how they make decisions and they're not uninformed. They will run A/B testing on simulated apps to measure exactly how much of a difference performance makes, and then balance that against the effort it will take vs the effort it will take to develop new features and then they prioritize accordingly.

No where else I've worked does that. Everywhere else just hears a customer or executive yell for a new feature and then the PM just starts working on it without proper research or without giving team's time to go back and address tech debt.

Is this because it’s an electron app, or because it’s made by incompetent programmers? I don’t know, but we made incredible hardware improvements in personal computing, new software should be even more efficient and use them better, not get more and more bloaty to have the same experience on older and newer hardware

Given that VSCode is made by the same company, is also an electron app, and is generally remarkably performant, I would posit that teams is made by worse programmers since it's a less attractive product to work on, and the team is probably less user focused since users don't buy their software, the users' workplaces do.