I thought of commenting on that as one thing in this article that didn't really stand the test of time. As a sibling comment points out, the JS world was very different in 2009, and we didn't have the same kind of flamewars that we do now.
I think that's actually a point in favor of the article. In 2009, virtually nobody considered themselves a "Javascript programmer". Rather, Javascript was a skill that you used to build webapps, which itself was a skill you used as part of a larger software system. It was pointless to get emotionally invested in Javascript arguments on the Internet, because whether you won or lost, you still needed Rails/Django on the server, and SQL or C++/Java on the backend.
Sometime between 2009 and 2015, Javascript became a tribe, where you could invest enough of your life in it that discussions about it became a matter of identity. And its growth became threatening enough to other programming "tribes" (eg. Windows programmers, Rails programmers) that you could suddenly have very heated discussions about it on the Internet.
>In 2009, virtually nobody considered themselves a "Javascript programmer".
I'm guessing the "Javascript is my identity" era began with Nodejs. Before 2009, Javascript was something that was "tolerated" because it just came with all the browsers. Back then, having any point of pride in being a "Javascript programmer" would be a little weird as if a homeowner proclaimed he was a "Panasonic keypad microwave programmer instead of a Samsung microwave programmer". Nobody cares what buttons you press to pop your popcorn. Likewise, the "Javascript" stuff was just something you had to do for interactive webpages.
However, for someone to have the audacity of duplicating the Javascript environment on the server side... that means subsequent programmers get to make an invested choice, which means... flame wars.
I don't consider Rhino nor other Javascript environments like Adobe Actionscript and Microsoft JScript as contributing to the "Javascript identity." It really seems like the Javascript apologia/evangelism was kicked off by Nodejs' popularity.
As a consequence, we see many "I'm leaving Nodejs for Go" and virtually zero "I'm leaving Rhino for Python".
I do not believe this author had much experience discussing JS on forums.