I'm no expert but I believe most modern javascript engines now compile Javascript JIT. In fact I think Apple recently added LLVM to their Javascript engine.
Node.js runs Javascript local to the machine in the V8 engine, which compiles it. As I understand it, that is architecturally analogous to running Java locally in the JVM. So I think that practically speaking, Javascript and Java are not so different from one another in how they access the hardware resources of the machine.
Node.js runs Javascript local to the machine in the V8 engine, which compiles it. As I understand it, that is architecturally analogous to running Java locally in the JVM. So I think that practically speaking, Javascript and Java are not so different from one another in how they access the hardware resources of the machine.