There's exciting stuff happening in all languages. Right now javascript is fashionable in certain <i>highly-visible</i> development communities (like the open-source community, for example). That doesn't mean it's the most popular language, or that it's the right choice for your project.<p>The other factor is that browsers (for mostly historical reasons) only widely support javascript natively. So naturally, most front-end frameworks will be javascript based.
Just so you know, I am recent graduate from the Fullstack Academy (<a href="http://www.fullstackacademy.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.fullstackacademy.com/</a>) bootcamp which focuses on the MEAN stack (JavaScript only stack). I did decide to go to a JavaScript focused bootcamp because of the fact that I would be using the same language (JavaScript) on the front end, back end and in the database. I believe this allowed me to help learn the principles of web development better since I did not have to learn anything else like (ruby, python, or php lets say).<p>So I found it nice that I am using the same language on the front, back and in the database which maybe why there are a lot of people using it.<p>However, with that being said, I think that there is a lot of "good stuff" happening around the whole web development landscape and not just with JavaScript.