I think that a lot of people from other walks of life somehow end up working on HTML projects learn that in order to make their mouseover menus work they need something called JavaScript, so they search for cut and paste something that someone says is what they want and then start hunting for someone to get them over the hump to make it work.
This is not meant to disparage people like web designers who come at things from an artistic angle, but a lot of people who write Javascript are doing it in a tertiary role -- in support of HTML in support of producing a visual design that they envision. That these people don't have a solid foundation in programming shouldn't be alarming or disconcerting.
Ten years ago Javascript had a reputation of being a crap/toy language, largely for this reason. It really wasn't until GMail, IMO, when people started saying "Look, a JS app that doesn't suck!" and things kind of went forward from there.
This is not meant to disparage people like web designers who come at things from an artistic angle, but a lot of people who write Javascript are doing it in a tertiary role -- in support of HTML in support of producing a visual design that they envision. That these people don't have a solid foundation in programming shouldn't be alarming or disconcerting.
Ten years ago Javascript had a reputation of being a crap/toy language, largely for this reason. It really wasn't until GMail, IMO, when people started saying "Look, a JS app that doesn't suck!" and things kind of went forward from there.