I think it's something else, as well. Rich even mentions it in his talk: languages like Java (which I'm reading to mean "statically typed") are great at mechani

I think it's something else, as well. Rich even mentions it in his talk: languages like Java (which I'm reading to mean "statically typed") are great at mechanical tasks. Front end programming is mostly filled with mechanical tasks: scaffold this structure/layout. Wire up these events. Make this thing blue/bold/etc. Change the state when these events happen. It's fairly predictable in structure in line-of-business apps, at least once you're following an intelligent structure, e.g. the Elm architecture. UI/Front end dev, IMO, can gain quite a bit from static typing. I'm a huge fan of clojurescript, it's what I reach for whenever I want to work on something, but I'm super excited about ReasonML for the future of my team; we struggle with our JavaScript code base right now due to the lack of imposed structure and feedback for our weaker developers. I love Clojure and I think it makes sense in a lot of domains; most of my back end development is "take this data, transform it according to some nebulous business rules, and poop it out to some other place," which Clojure is amazing for. It's great for applications that don't require a lot of "wiring", and require a lot of "flow". UI programming is, for the most part, wiring things up. It's not that Clojure/Script is not up to the task (I think e.g. re-frame, and the stuff being done with Fulcro, is amazing) but I definitely see the benefits of static typing more in that domain. And like Rich said, if you're doing UI it will usually completely dominate the problem space you're working in. So pick the right tool for the job. I'm not convinced TypeScript is the way exactly, but like I said, ReasonML and Elm are super promising.