Infrequently Noted

Aaron says I need to work on my slug sentences, and I agree. On reflection, I suck at writing almost any kind of sentence. I guess I shouldn't expect slugs to be different.

For a couple of years I've been akwardly saying things like "and I would suspect that JavaScript is the most successful scripting language ever" or "I don't really have any hard numbers, but JavaScript seems incredibly successful as a language". Note all the hedging.

What I would like to know is this: on what axis is JavaScript not the most successful scripting language of all time? Can some other language beat JS in:

• implementations of a ratified language spec (scheme? lisp? do they even "count"?)
• interpreters deployed (Forth is in every Apple and SUN bios...can that possibly beat the distribution of IE, Firefox, and Safari?)
• lines of code written for said language

Perhaps KSH and/or bash would win? I'm curious to know if anyone can think up other strong contenders.