I haven't read that paper yet, but this sort of test seems like it should have the least noise in the results. I'm also surprised that the solutions took longe

I haven't read that paper yet, but this sort of test seems like it should have the least noise in the results. I'm also surprised that the solutions took longer in the typed language, but it really depends on how much cognitive overhead the language imposes. For instance, modern typed languages are moving to implicit types for local variables, while the alternative can be a lot of pointless typing (on the keyboard) [though there are debates to be had about making some of those types explicit to aid readability]. If the languages really are similar, the only types you have to specify are for member variables and functions, right?