think about it the other way, and it's an admission that statically typed languages are a failed experiment because sometimes you really want to tell the typech

think about it the other way, and it's an admission that statically typed languages are a failed experiment because sometimes you really want to tell the typechecker "look, i can't prove this at compile time but it is correct", i.e. not have types in your code. the designer of the stanza language has a good writeup on why stanza uses optional types: http://lbstanza.org/optional_typing.html http://lbstanza.org/optional_typing.html