After reading through this thread I still haven't seen convincing arguments why statically typed languages are not "better" (EDIT: "better" for typical web/busi

After reading through this thread I still haven't seen convincing arguments why statically typed languages are not "better" (EDIT: "better" for typical web/business applications). I have been programming Python for many years now, along with a mix of C#, Scala and some F#. I find that the programming idioms that I care about are supported in all of them. There are some valid problems, but IMHO they are not major: 1. Compilation Time (But do we have to compile that often? Although I find myself doing this more often with Python, to make sure I did not make a spelling mistake!) 2. Duck-Typing (Yes good to have. In future we might see more Structural Subtyping) But what tipped the scale is my experience with refactoring large projects. In dynamically typed languages, it is scary to make a even simple changes in code you haven't touched in a while. Unless you have full test coverage, plus insurance. In statically typed langs, this is much easier. We run software services company. We have a policy of refactoring suboptimal code on sight. We try to do it in all projects, but I always see worried looks when refactoring dynamically typed code. And not so much when we are modifying, say C#.