I was not always a big fan of Javascript. To me it was always just a “side” language that took care of the intricate details that server side languages couldn’t handle. Mostly DOM manipulations, browser events and such. Sending data back and forth client and server was always a GET and a POST – nothing HTML and Server can’t handle.
Until AJAX came along. Now we can grab, send data without refresh. Then JSON. Way easier to handle than XML.

Then we have jQuery – now browser inconsistencies are easy to fix. Animations – sure, no problem.
I started seeing a pattern. All new technology revolving around JavaScript.
It doesn’t stop there. Anyone heard of Node? Meteor? React?
So now there is JavaScript running on the server. Big companies are using Node: Netflix​, Paypal​, LinkedIn​ (read the LinkedIn article with staggering performance results)
Isomorphic JavaScript is rapidly evolving as the future of web app development. Naturally, this architecture makes a lot of sense. One language for client and server: JavaScript. I suggest reading the following articles:

• What is an isomorphic application?
• Isomorphic JavaScript: the Future of Web Apps​

Destkop applications? The IDE that I use to write code for our SharePoint apps (Atom) is written in guess what? JavaScript! Yes, even Microsoft is on board with JavaScript – their new IDE called Visual Studio Code is built using Electron – the same Javascript framework that Atom was built on.
Meteor.js is a powerful platform using the “MEAN” stack. Yes – Angular folks!
As for Databases? MongoDB (The “M” in MEAN) uses a type of data structure like “JSON” – which is JavaScript influenced.
What about WordPress? Yes even WordPress is focusing heavily on Javascript. The built in REST API is in the works and will bring in a whole mass of possibilities for JavaScript Developers. Watch Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word 2015 speech where he emphasized loudly “Learn JavaScript”.
React is a JS library that let’s you write web components for dynamic applications. Components that you build all inside JavaScript (without templating or string concat).

So where am I heading with all of this?
The more I write JavaScript, the more I’m realizing how powerful this misunderstood language is. Lambdas, closures, higher order functions, prototypes – many concepts that are still tough to grasp – but really worth learning.
JavaScript is now the language of my choice. And I see it eat the web (if it hasn’t already). A quote from one of my favorite programmers: Eric Elliott:

Software is eating the world, the web is eating software, and JavaScript rules the web

On a side note, I've really enjoyed the videos from Laracasts.com. These are high quality web developer tutorials on topics and technologies ranging from Laravel, React, Vue and many more. Head over to Laracasts and check them out!

Let me know your thoughts below.