While Javascript is a mess, things like JQuery, JQueryUI, and others are making it easier to use. Google is trying to push their own replacement, Dart, but it's had almost no acceptance. JavaScript, HTML 5, and CSS 3 are pretty much become standard. You'll see more and more "desktop" apps using them. For example, do you want to do Win8 RT development? You can use the above.

>There have been a couple of recent threads on SlashDot discussing languages:
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>PHP: http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/06/29/1458234/the-php-singularity - some of the related links are epic posts describing its shortcomings. Regardless, a ( frighteningly? ) large portion of the web runs on PHP.
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>C: http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/07/02/1657206/whats-to-love-about-c That thread includes a pithy comment:
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>"Ca. 1980, the joke was that C was like masturbation: it might not be what you really want, but it's always available".
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>Sounds like the same argument could be made for JavaScript, today - what other client-side options are there?