> Let's not go into that for the millionth time

Ok, that's fair. My goal with this question wasn't to open a can of worms. But whenever I see a strong averse reaction to JS, I assume that the person hasn't tried using _modern_ JS.

> why is TS wildly successful

From my perspective, it stops me from making stupid mistakes, improves autocomplete, and adds more explicitness to the code, which is incredibly beneficial for large teams and big projects. But I don't think that answers my original question, because if you strip away the types, it's JS.

> even before that everyone was trying to use anything-but-js

Because JS used to suck a lot more, but it sucks a lot less now.