Why Static Typing Came Back • Richard Feldman • GOTO 2022

Discover why static typing has seen a resurgence in popularity, its advantages and disadvantages, and the ongoing competition with dynamic typing in this talk on the future of programming languages.

Key takeaways
  • Static typing is back: Static typing has seen a resurgence in popularity, with many languages incorporating static type systems.
  • Dynamic typing still popular: Despite the resurgence of static typing, dynamic typing remains popular and will likely continue to coexist with static typing.
  • Reasons for static typing’s return: The main factors contributing to static typing’s return are improvements in IDEs, incremental recompilation, and the ability to make static typing more gradual and optional.
  • Gradual typing: Gradual typing, where typing is added incrementally to a dynamically typed language, is gaining popularity as a way to reap the benefits of static typing without fully committing to it.
  • Advantages of static typing: Static typing provides better error reporting, faster feedback loops, and improved development productivity.
  • Disadvantages of static typing: Static typing can lead to slow feedback loops, ceremony-heavy code, and may not be suitable for all use cases.
  • Competition between static and dynamic typing: The competition between static and dynamic typing is ongoing, with both approaches having their own strengths and weaknesses.
  • Future of programming languages: The future of programming languages is likely to involve a combination of both static and dynamic typing, with more languages incorporating gradual typing and optional type systems.