Most people in the government that I've dealt with oversee projects and are really risk and contract managers. I took the question more as "why are you using a new language and nightly builds of that language." It's exactly the kind of thing that most program managers wouldn't even consider.

I've thought about this a lot as well and here's my humble opinion.

1) Writing frameworks in languages like C++ is hard. So you would expect to see fewer frameworks.

2) When a language is popular, like JavaScript, you get a lot of activity. (Notice the lack of new COBOL frameworks on Hacker News).

3) JavaScript can be fixed with polyfills, frameworks, monkey-patching, etc. So we fix the language until that fix is part of the language.

4) JavaScript is almost perfect for writing web clients and servers, and we're all trying to fix that 'almost' part.

5) Ego is part of it - you have to engage in some level of promotion (otherwise you can't cut through the noise).

6) It's fun. It amazes me what I can do with JavaScript some times. I wouldn't mind doing that all day.

Location: Near Washington DC

Remote: YES

Willing to relocate: NO

Technologies: Java, JavaScript, NoSQL (MarkLogic), SQL (Oracle and Postgres), Node.JS and basic fluency in C# and Python

Resume/CV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1IuZhqxzikwJciPE1xYCrU1cAaq...

Email: paul.hoehne [at] gmail [dot] com