Keep in mind that all of this is just my opinion. I'm not going to append "IMHO" to each sentence, as to save the reader the tedium of reading it. I'm not saying that I'm correct or that people should agree with me.
I would go so far as to say that I think overly simplistic static type systems don't have much benefit. C's static typing drives me crazy, as there's almost nothing of use that I can express with it. It's the same with Go; I almost never pass an Int when I meant to pass a Bool. In exchange for thoroughly unhelpful type errors I now have to jump through flaming hoops to parse JSON.
It ends up being a bit like JavaScript or Python where both languages lack the ability to specify that something is truly private (though in JS you can use closures to hide things). You generally just use a naming convention to mark a thing as private, and hopefully people have the decency to respect that. It's like that with types in dynamic languages; I can express pretty complex relationships with types and keep the whole thing in my head with out many problems.
That said, languages with powerful type systems like Scala and Haskell are thoroughly worth the effort. I can express almost anything with these type systems, usually with a minimum of fuss. They can protect me from the dreaded NPE, and that's a bug I encounter quite often. They can help me write simpler code that deals with complex shapes of data with their support for pattern matching and TCO. This one is more Haskell related, but the guarantee that everything is immutable and lazy makes it possible for the compiler to do some insanely impressive optimizations.
Scala, Haskell, and Rust have taken a dyed-in-the-wool lover of dynamic languages and made a convert of me. They finally followed through on the promises of safety and productivity that other languages failed to deliver on.
In closing, I'll repeat one last time that all of these are merely the opinions of an insufferable neck beard (me). Even if we disagree, I'm sure you're a very nice person, and I approve of you using whatever languages and tools make you happy and productive.
I can't help but wonder whether you're that circumspect with everyone or if I come off as crazy-kill-you-you-phillistine and need to work on my communication skills?
Aside from the fact that I've never felt scarier, I agree entirely with every single point you just made and thank you for qualifying my broad generalisation.
I would go so far as to say that I think overly simplistic static type systems don't have much benefit. C's static typing drives me crazy, as there's almost nothing of use that I can express with it. It's the same with Go; I almost never pass an Int when I meant to pass a Bool. In exchange for thoroughly unhelpful type errors I now have to jump through flaming hoops to parse JSON.
It ends up being a bit like JavaScript or Python where both languages lack the ability to specify that something is truly private (though in JS you can use closures to hide things). You generally just use a naming convention to mark a thing as private, and hopefully people have the decency to respect that. It's like that with types in dynamic languages; I can express pretty complex relationships with types and keep the whole thing in my head with out many problems.
That said, languages with powerful type systems like Scala and Haskell are thoroughly worth the effort. I can express almost anything with these type systems, usually with a minimum of fuss. They can protect me from the dreaded NPE, and that's a bug I encounter quite often. They can help me write simpler code that deals with complex shapes of data with their support for pattern matching and TCO. This one is more Haskell related, but the guarantee that everything is immutable and lazy makes it possible for the compiler to do some insanely impressive optimizations.
Scala, Haskell, and Rust have taken a dyed-in-the-wool lover of dynamic languages and made a convert of me. They finally followed through on the promises of safety and productivity that other languages failed to deliver on.
In closing, I'll repeat one last time that all of these are merely the opinions of an insufferable neck beard (me). Even if we disagree, I'm sure you're a very nice person, and I approve of you using whatever languages and tools make you happy and productive.