In particular, I appreciate this article as much for "Why not Python". I feel Python could easily be the lingua franca if it could deal better with the version issue. Using Scala for similar reasons (the other being general performance).
Probably the author underestimated node.js though. Using the author's language, it has a lot of "sex".
I'm not sure that a "lingua franca" is even possible. Even if one language was so far ahead of the others that discussions like this thread were pointless, there would always be resistance from other developers. People just seem to get too attached to the idea of "There's one language to write everything in, and I pick this one."
Probably the author underestimated node.js though. Using the author's language, it has a lot of "sex".