In addition to all the other things JavaScript is, it is also a hosted language. "ECMAScript is an object-oriented programming language for performing computations and manipulating computational objects within a host environment." - ECMA-262 3rd Edition.
People seem to forget there is a distinction between JavaScript, the Browser Object Model (BOM), and the Document Object Model (DOM). JavaScript has no native input or output functionality. These capabilities must be provided by the host. When the host is the web browser, there is a fairly well followed standard for JavaScript, there is a partially followed standard for the DOM, and there is no standard for the BOM.
The reason that people still hate JavaScript is not because of the inconsistent implementations of JavaScript. In fact, JavaScript has been implemented fairly consistently. No, the reason people hate JavaScript is because of the inconsistent implementations of the BOM and the DOM.
If you look in the ECMAScript specification, there is no method named alert. Where does it come from? The host environment. If IE 9 changed the name of the alert method to displayMessage, there would be an uproar that Microsoft "broke" JavaScript. When, in fact, they would have broken an unwritten BOM standard that said the browser would provide a host-based method named alert. It's a subtle, but important distinction.
What is broken is the implementation of the DOM. Some parts of the DOM are implemented consistently. Some parts are horribly different. In IE 8, Microsoft (allegedly) worked on fixing problems with their implementation of CSS. Their implementation of the DOM, however, is basically unchanged from IE 6. This is why web developers still hate IE. Not JavaScript, but the DOM.
As mentioned in other posts above, JavaScript has already broken out of the browser. But is has landed in other hosted environments. ActionScript in Flash is just JavaScript with the "Flash Object Model" instead of the BOM/DOM. You can use JavaScript in Photoshop using the "PhotoShop Object Model" to script the manipulation of images.
The effort here is to provide a "System Object Model" to JavaScript so that JavaScript can interact with the OS more directly. The success of that effort will be based on how well they design the host objects for JavaScript to work with and how consistently those standards are followed. Not on the fact that they're using JavaScript.
And JavaScript on the server is nothing new. I've got an old copy of "Pure JavaScript" by Wyke, Gilliam, and Ting published in 1999 that discusses server-side JavaScript on the Netscape web server. It includes objects to work with form data, files, databases, and e-mail servers.
Am I condoning the efforts to expand the use of JavaScript? No. I just want people that "hate JavaScript" to understand a little better what it is they hate. And I want the proponents of breaking JavaScript out of the browser to realize there are people who went before them and if they stop and look around for a second, there are lessons to be learned before the repeat old mistakes.
