GMail managed to be popular thanks to the XMLhttprequest() function being implemented in internet explorer. Microsoft had a monopoly on software, but it was still possible to do things through a web browser, enabling competitors and websites running on linux.
Javascript got popular because it was here first, so developers used it and became able to work with it. When this happens, javascript had inertia which is impossible to stop. Javascript allows one to deploy anything on any platform with a web browser, without copying files.
Webassembly is great, but it's not easy to build WASM files, the toolchain software used (compilers linkers etc) are not mature (only rust can build to WASM natively), and it requires that all language compile to wasm, so compiler developer need to implement a WASM compile "target", which takes time and is not always possible depending on language (python comes to mind, because of its large library, global interpreter lock, etc).
Also, WASM doesn't have access to the DOM or webGL, meaning that you still need to make JS calls to interact with a webpage.
> Javascript got popular because it was here first, so developers used it and became able to work with it.
And you could easily copy and learn from scripts before minification became the norm. And you just have to refresh some page after updating your sources to see the result.
Sure, but it's difficult to make newcomers understand why the language still has those nasty behaviors.
In essence, it's very expensive to risk losing backward compatibility or to make large portions of js software obsolete just to remove some bit of language ambiguity.
It's very frustrating but it's true for all languages out there. Same concept when linus torvalds yells "YOU DON'T BREAK USERSPACE". Backward compatibility almost has its own philosophical chapter on software design.
Also remember how painful it was from switching from python 2 to 3. I guess a solution would be heavy usage of linters, typescript or other compile-to-js solution, but in the end, a lot of developers are just wishing very hard for better solutions.
Personally I am really not willing to become a professional JS dev. I'm too perfectionist and nitpicky to have the courage to suffer so much for such thing. Deep down I know it's a bad choice, but I'm too lazy.
Javascript got popular because it was here first, so developers used it and became able to work with it. When this happens, javascript had inertia which is impossible to stop. Javascript allows one to deploy anything on any platform with a web browser, without copying files.
Webassembly is great, but it's not easy to build WASM files, the toolchain software used (compilers linkers etc) are not mature (only rust can build to WASM natively), and it requires that all language compile to wasm, so compiler developer need to implement a WASM compile "target", which takes time and is not always possible depending on language (python comes to mind, because of its large library, global interpreter lock, etc).
Also, WASM doesn't have access to the DOM or webGL, meaning that you still need to make JS calls to interact with a webpage.