> we could be writing web apps in Go/Rust instead of JS. (or Groovy, $lang_of_choice)
Couldn't work out if you're using Groovy as an example of a shoddy language used because there was nothing better (like JS), or a better language that everyone couldn't agree on (like Go/Rust). Groovy was originally based on Beanshell but with closures added, and became mildly popular for scripting on the JVM around 2006 onwards, and its later use by Gradle for 30-line build scripts. A meta-object protocol was added and Grails (a knock-off of Rails) was built to utilize it, though Grails use is on the decline partly thanks to Node.js. Although the backers of Groovy have since added other cruft, it hasn't moved beyond its original use case of scripting the JVM (like Bash for Linux).
Couldn't work out if you're using Groovy as an example of a shoddy language used because there was nothing better (like JS), or a better language that everyone couldn't agree on (like Go/Rust). Groovy was originally based on Beanshell but with closures added, and became mildly popular for scripting on the JVM around 2006 onwards, and its later use by Gradle for 30-line build scripts. A meta-object protocol was added and Grails (a knock-off of Rails) was built to utilize it, though Grails use is on the decline partly thanks to Node.js. Although the backers of Groovy have since added other cruft, it hasn't moved beyond its original use case of scripting the JVM (like Bash for Linux).