JavaScript. Love it or hate it, JavaScript is the second most popular language in software development today, eclipsed only by Java (and just barely). JavaScript is also the fastest growing language in popularity.
The popularity of JavaScript is being driven by its complete dominance in web browsers, its popularity server side with node.js, and its growing popularity in mobile – with cross platform development platforms like React Native and Cordova.
JavaScript is now a practical choice for full stack development and mobile. This creates an opportunity to build solutions largely using a single language.
This is an exciting possibility due to the leverage it can provide for an organization. Instead of needing expert developers for backend work, mobile (both iOS and Android), and web – the organization can now hire JavaScript devs that can leverage their language expertise across all tiers.
This can save development costs and speed project timelines significantly. It also promises to lower maintenance costs significantly.
JavaScript is a powerful and flexible language but it does have its challenges. The language has lacked basic modularity support – although this is fixed with JavaScript ES2015. Developing cross platform mobile apps can be challenging if advanced native functionality is required but React Native from Facebook and Cordova from Apache are evolving and improving rapidly. The server side of the equation is the most compelling with the incredible explosion in popularity of node.js along with several JavaScript friendly database options like MongoDB.
With JavaScript’s current capabilities and momentum it deserves serious consideration for new solutions development.