I recognize that we can have different goals, and you may value flexibility over safety. However, it is not a matter of opinion whether software safety (and therefor availability) benefits from checks performed before run-time. Conversely, it is not a matter of opinion that dynamic languages allow patterns that static typing does not (eg. duck typing[sic]). These are objective arguments we can discuss, and weigh against each other. There are even studies that we can throw in here.

>> Nowadays I see no notable arguments for dynamically typed programming languages. >A quick Google brought up an article from Dec 2016: https://medium.com/javascript-scene/you-might-not-need-types....

I glanced over it the other day and wasn't very interested. I wanted to give it a more thorough look before I replied to you, but it seems it got pulled. looks meaningfully

>What about Elixir and Clojure?

I see your Erlang dialect Elixir with Elm (arguably a dialect of ML). The Lisp Clojure is itself a bit older dialect of Lisp, so maybe Scala for that? I think Lisp and Erlang are mostly about the paradigm and concepts, not about being dynamic, what do you say? Talking about the JVM, I'll raise you a Kotlin. Also noteworthy is that Groovy got static type checking with v2. As for the CLR, I must say I don't know that much have changed since F# (a dialect of ML). Basically, you've had a nice pair of cards, but they make your hand. What I'm trying to reiterate is that there seems to be a definite trend towards types.

>Turing-complete[ness]

:/

>Racket contracts [...] providing the safety guarantees in [dynamic and static] worlds.

You didn't explain what they were, so I'll assume they're runtime guards. That means they're as useful as explicit runtime checks, but don't provide safety a static type checker would provide.

> Dialyzer is a static type checker, which only rejects programs it knows for sure will result in error. Traditional type systems require the programmer to supply the proof that the code is correct and will refuse to type check without one.

So weak (algebraic data) type inference? That's better than no checking. Now as far as weak vs strong typing goes, I'll agree to disagree about type coercion here. My default is maximum safety, but I won't claim that there are absolutely no domains where explicit conversions are a "pain" without much advantage. The suspicion that there might be some was the reason for my original challenge. I really wish someone would think that through and try and convince me.

>I mentioned Forth and Assembly because these are the only languages I know of (TCL may also qualify) which are truly unityped. I suppose you'd like dynamic typing more after working with something which lacks any kind of types.

I've worked with multiple assembly languages. An assembly programmer might use your "correct programs" argument and say: "Run-time checks are a pain; I don't want to check if quacking is an option, I know something clever will happen if you just jump; don't crash my program, it's correct!". I think this a valid argument only if the check overhead is prohibitively great. But what's prohibitive about compile-time checking? Time before you can run? You can reduce that with, say, incremental compilation. Don't allow certain bug types(pun) to go unnoticed and crash your program instead. It may not be as bad as what assembly would do, but it's still catastrophic.

>the most accurate auto-complete you've ever seen: at any point, you know exactly which classes have which methods.

I have that even when the program's not running :P

>Well, in any case, you shouldn't wait to "get convinced" by someone. You should try to learn the dynamic typing side of things on your own and use it for a while. It will make you a better programmer overall, even if you get back to static typing later.

I don't know why you assume my ignorance. I've used dynamically typed languages, I've studied the concepts, it's even possible I've seen the very Smalltalk talk you were thinking about before. I choose to avoid the dynamic capabilities of my otherwise statically typed language that I use at work. I'm still open to the possibility that there's gold buried somewhere, but I am not going dig just because you imply there is. People claim a lot of things are revolutionary which aren't. Give me an example why you say something's good, convince me it's worth my time. I do the same.

My invitation to provide arguments, or a domain for dynamic languages still stands.

EDIT: (Do not read this if you are kilbertp) Shh, I'm actually watching a video on the Dialyzer now