Dunno, to me it just seems to be yet-another language that has enjoyed some success, that is now trying to grow tangentally ... into new directions (which require much more of a “compile, then execute” strategy than original-JS does), while borrowing shamelessly upon a predecessor’s reputation and trade-name.   (We have certainly seen that before, around here.)

Personally, I predict that this kind of language development (particularly on mobile platforms) will actually take a different direction:   to leverage a technology known as transpilers.   These are “language compilers which produce source-code as output, possibly “among other things.”   (Haxe is one that has become very critical to me, but it’s not the only one.)

The ECMAScript nee JavaScript language has become massive, with billions of lines of installed base, and with interpreters that can’t change much because people won’t their web browsers and can’t upgrade their phones.   (Contrary to popular opinion, not everyone spends $600+ every two years like clockwork on “a new iPhone.”   E/J Script is popular but it is also a least-common denominator.)

So, you really can’t change that target much.   But what you can change how source-code is written in and for it.   You can write in much higher-level idioms, and compile it to this or any one of several targets.   Including bytecodes run by tiny interpreters and prepared by truly-optimizing transpilers.