4 ms·

>As the world is gradually moving to more statically-typed languages Depends on how do you see it; because Python has grown a lot in the last 2 years, and Java

• jhbadger 9y ago
  Exactly. Static typing isn't some new technology -- languages like Pascal (which was very popular in the 1970s and 1980s) had it. Scripting languages (which tend to be dynamically typed) took off in the 1990s as a reaction to the inflexibility of statically typed languages. If static typing was really the silver bullet its current defenders think it is, why do they think scripting languages took off?
  • bbatha 9y ago
    Because the static languages of the time, C++, Java, etc had serious deficiencies that made that style of static typing a hindrance. Type inferences, type class style generics, and gradual typing have been huge wins for the ergonomics of static typing. Additionally IDEs have improved immensely since the 90s and static typing makes the experience much better. Finally I’d argue that the size of apps has increased a lot. Dynamic typing is great for small apps that you need to get out the door. Static typing shows its advantages in the long tail. The more people you have working on a codebase the more the static typing pays off. Typescript for instance was created specifically to manage large JavaScript code bases.
    • flavio81 9y ago
      Really big apps have existed since the early 70s. I'd argue that the average application size gets lower every year due to the increasing number of specialized libs every year. And C++ has supported generics long before the boom in popularity for dynamic scripting languages...