There are many languages that can be used in many different application domains. For example, Smalltalk can be used on the web, on mobile, on the server, on desktop…practically everywhere! Smalltalk can be used for numerical computing, machine learning, natural language processing, data visualization, virtual reality, robotics, Internet of Things, ERP. Smalltalk is being used to fight Ebola! However, even I wouldn’t claim that Smalltalk is a popular language.

The point is, JavaScript only dominates in one area: front-end web development. Everywhere else, it plays second fiddle to other languages. On the server side where Node is doing fairly well, it hardly dominates. Java, PHP, Python, C#, Ruby, Go, Erlang, Scala, Clojure, and others are very strong.

On mobile, Java for Android and Objective-C/Swift for iOS easily trounce JavaScript. On desktop, Java (JavaFX) and C++ (Qt) are very strong; even Python (PySide) does quite well. On games, C# is overwhelmingly preferred over UnityScript (a JavaScript derivative) on the Unity platform.

Like Smalltalk, just because JavaScript can be used in many other application domains does not mean it’s a strong or popular choice. From the career standpoint, JavaScript is only good for front-end web development and maybe Node programming.

Look at the JavaScript job postings at Indeed.com: they’re practically all for web development. I defy you to find job postings for mobile or desktop or Internet of Things or data science or ERP.

If you plan on making web development your sole career option, then yes, I can’t argue against JavaScript. But let’s not delude ourselves that JavaScript is taking over the world.