The key points for JavaScript being so popular today are mentioned below. JavaScript is a flexible and powerful programming language that is implemented consistently by various web browsers. Along with HTML and CSS, it’s a core component of web technology. While HTML is responsible for structure and CSS is responsible for style, JavaScript provides interactivity to web pages in the browser.

JavaScript was never intended to become the standard language for the web! It was coded over less than two weeks(10 Days, to be precise) to provide a light weight scripting language  for the web for browsers in the late in the 1990s.

But JavaScript is now an essential web technology that’s supported by the most popular web browsers. Familiarity with the language is crucial for anyone who wants to become a web developer—that’s why it’s been the most commonly used programming language in Stack Overflow’s Developer Survey for six years in a row.

JavaScript’s Popularity

JavaScript became a hit because it turned web browsers into application platforms. Here’s how:

1. JavaScript can be used in both the front-end and back-end of web development.
2. JavaScript is standardized, so it’s frequently updated with new versions and new frameworks.
3. JavaScript works with the document object model, or the DOM, to respond to user interactions. The DOM is the structure in the browser that displays a web pages.
4. JavaScript allows websites to have interactivity like scroll transitions and object movement. Chrome, has been so successful in part because of its ability to process JavaScript quickly.
5. JavaScript offers a wide range of frameworks and libraries that help developers create complex applications with low overhead. For example, Three.js , Anime.js , GSAP and one of the most useful is Electron.js .  Desktop apps like Slack, GitHub, Skype, and Tidal are developed with the JavaScript framework called Electron.js. For the back-end Node.JS, or Node, is one of the most popular versions of server-side JavaScript. Node has been used to write large platforms for NASA, eBay and many others.

In conclusion , JavaScript’s popularity is owed to it’s versatility and it’s platform support across almost all browsers. To become a web-developer JavaScript is absolutely necessary.

Hope this helps.