I think this is the answer. JS is the new BASIC - or a new BASIC, anyway - but it is harder to tell because the audience is more diffuse, and mixed up with so many other audiences.
In the earliest days of PCs it was easy to spot the BASIC programmers: most people who owned a PC learned a little. What else was there to do with it? And computers were expensive, so odds were that if you owned one you were pretty fond of computers.
Now the situation is like that in music: we are in a golden age of programming, but it is hard to appreciate because it is so diffuse and varied: The equivalent of the big arena rock show isn't there.
In the earliest days of PCs it was easy to spot the BASIC programmers: most people who owned a PC learned a little. What else was there to do with it? And computers were expensive, so odds were that if you owned one you were pretty fond of computers.
Now the situation is like that in music: we are in a golden age of programming, but it is hard to appreciate because it is so diffuse and varied: The equivalent of the big arena rock show isn't there.