There are interviews to Eich and Zawinski in the "Coders at Work" book that tell a lot about the context were Javascript was developed. They are very interesting, and that book is almost obligatory read to anyone interested in the history and current state of sofware development.<p>Crockford is also interviewed there and asked about language subsetting and the thinking behind Javascript: The Good Parts.
As much as I love JavaScript, I can't help but curse the Date object every time I have to do something other than just instantiate the current local time and print it out.
Most successful people benefit more from "dumb luck" than they ever realize. But what makes most of them successful is their ability to take advantage of and benefit from random occurrences.