Matthew Wright

JavaScript the language I use by far the most. There are just enough good parts in the language that can be a highly productive tool for application development. Namely, it has first class functions closures. Once you learn to use a small subset of javascript you become a radically more productive javascript programmer, and create simpler code. For example, never use `.prototype`, `this`, or es6 classes. So yes, if you try to use classical object oriented programming in javascript, even with es6 and/or typescript you will still be in for a world of pain. Once you truly experience programming without classical inheritance, your mind opens and you begin to realize just how easy polymorphism, encapsulation, and code reuse actually is.

Node is my favorite development platform. It's a very produtive way to build reliable distributed systems. Yes, "reliable" and "javascript" can co-exist when you follow good development practices. I've used node to make backend services, realtime applications, IoT applications, build tools, and even specialized compile to JS languages. I've published several libraries and 2 language compilers that you can find on my github https://www.npmjs.com/~farskipper, also be sure to see the repos I contribute to.

When given the choice of front-end framework, I always pick Elm. It's delightful, the tooling is great (I use it with webpack hotreloading). The core libraries are at the right layer of abstraction. I've learned a few tricks and patterns that help keep your elm code well-organized, and scalable (scalable in the feature adding sense). For backends I particullary like GraphQL, but I've also used firebase and REST with elm.