I mean, if you're in 2012, comparing Java 6 or C# 2.0 or C++98 to Ruby or Python, you can see how people come to that conclusion. Local type inference has done

I mean, if you're in 2012, comparing Java 6 or C# 2.0 or C++98 to Ruby or Python, you can see how people come to that conclusion. Local type inference has done wonders for the ergonomics of static typing, and while research-y languages have had it forever (and some like Haskell even allow the scope of inference to go further), it's a relatively recent addition to the mainstream.