Even with older lower level languages like C and COBOL '02 it's easier to do simple things like find a file, read the file, and draw the file on the screen as a raster image using a resizable canvas than it is to write the JavaScript to do the same thing.

The mangling of JavaScript to fit through every hole seems to be the biggest mistake made in modern programming, and I'm not sure what even keeps it going aside from momentum. At first it regained ground because Flash was going EOL, but now?