JavaScript is indeed is quite a mystery and what really baffles is everybody uses
it but nobody understands it.
The reason behind this is we just use JavaScript as filler language or as a toy language.
We don’t do any serious business logic into this,but some form validation or for some
arbitrary GUI requests like enabling and disabling of buttons on form load etc.
Debugging in JavaScript is also a big task and makes the language more obscure.
If you are an Web-Application developer working on a Java platform(i have very little idea
about Microsoft World:It just seems different and Closed,No open-Source!).Than you will
most of the time choose either ‘Struts-JSP’ or ‘Web-Work-Velocity’ approach.Words like MVC and
Separation of Layers are at center stage ,in mid of all this if you have a small requirement
like some X button should be disabled till the time some internal-Frame gets Loaded,than its
the JavaScript which will help you.
But the moment your Jsp has noticeable amount of JavaScript ,you can see the frown on the face of
your Senior.’
I came across a video-presentation from ‘Yahoo! JavaScript Architect Douglas Crockford’ and its
quite interesting especially when you get to know about history and than things look more
in order.General questions like why JavaScript has name Java associated with it,is it some strip
down version of Java will get answered in this.
Its a good introduction about JavaScript.Here’s the link to Video 
