Actually typing in PHP is not really static. Errors are thrown at runtime, afaik. There might be separate tools, which check the types before running the progra

Actually typing in PHP is not really static. Errors are thrown at runtime, afaik. There might be separate tools, which check the types before running the program, but they are not PHP itself. That aside, I think part the reason, why static typing brings so much to the table in languages like PHP and JS (in form of TypeScript) is, that they are rather weakly typed and not strongly typed. Weak typing and dynamic typing can make for a terrible DX, when bad designs are present like they are a lot in PHP and JS. I like static typing personally, but for example have no issue with using a strongly typed language, which does not allow me to treat a number as a string or string as a number or similar. Often such a language provides means of making things safer at runtime at least. For example one can define structs and functions, which only work, when they get an instance of that struct. Any other type of value would result in an error. Then of course there are unit tests, which can cover a lot of ground, even if not all a type system can do in theory.