Douglas Crockford himself says so !
http://www.crockford.com/javascript/javascript.html
I have been working with JS only for the past few months, with jQuery and ExtJS. Soon will get to work on Secha Touch.
I find Javascript to be highly enlightening.. What is your opinion ?
Crockford himself says that the language is not without its flaws. What flaws bother you the most ? How do you overcome them ?
The association with Java didn't help, or rather Java Applets, back in day they were slow and likely to the crash browsers. This had a negative impact on JavaScript reputation.
Also the DOM, people associate Javascript with the DOM and its inconsistencies, fair enough the DOM is primary API for most people using Javascript but different implementations of DOM shouldnt reflect so badly on the language. Again this is an area which continues to improve.
I love the language, its so small, but you can get so much done, maybe this is because I came from a static compiled language background. Again Crockford is the better introduction before hitting the DOM space.
Because Brendan Eich (who created JavaScript) wanted to implement Lisp in the browser, but his boss told him to do something more like Java. And that having Java in the name would be good too! So he disguised his Lisp-like language in a Java-shroud.