> Do people who prefer dynamic languages actually use the benefits of dynamic typing in the first place? Changing variables from one type to another mid-stream.

> Do people who prefer dynamic languages actually use the benefits of dynamic typing in the first place? Changing variables from one type to another mid-stream. Dynamically adding properties to objects, using == instead of === etc.. Those things are a recipe for bugs, inconsistency, and unmaintainability right from the get go. I think you are mixing some things there. The biggest advantage of dynamic typing is that it has no restrictions to how you are allowed to program. There are many cool language features that you can only use in a static language if its type system was designed to support it while in a dynamic language you can just implement it yourself (just hope it doesn't crash at runtime). For example, datatype-generic functions, object orientation (in all different variations), encoding JSON, etc. Changing variables from one type to the other mid stream is usually a bad programming practice, so don't do that. Same thing for "==", although sometimes coercions really are convenient (for example wen you read data from an input field its often in string format). Dynamically adding properties to objects is very useful if you are doing some "metaprogramming" stuff. For example, its trivial to write a "clone" method in Javascript because you can dynamically set properties. In a static language you would need language support for this. > Static typing doesn't feel intrusive, it feels like a flashlight. Which is why the Typescript project exists! When your programs are super small (for example, an inline onclick event handler) then dynamic typing wins because its concise (no type annotations), conceptually simple (no type system, type inference, etc) and doesn't get in the way. However, if you have a large program that can't fit all in your head at once then the types help a lot.