My background is php and then javascript. My first experience with 'types' was learning that apparently javascript's implicit type conversion was not normal and actually pretty bad. That made sense to me.

Then I learned about explicit types via TypeScript, and that made sense to me too, although I could imagine how this could explicit typing could get in the way of my prototyping, small projects, or REPL-driven development.

Now, a few years later, and having learned a bunch of new languages, both explicitly and implicitly typed, I'm mostly wondering why I'd go for anything that isn't gradually typed as an ideal approach.

I get the impression that the core discussion is explicit vs implicit (correct me if I'm wrong), and I can see how in some cases enforcing explicit typing is worthwhile, but for most of the work I actually do, it seems like the best solution is something gradual and flexible. Typescript, or perhaps some (improved) version of Elixir/Erlang's Dialyzer, or Clojure's spec: flexible enough to allow for said prototyping, small projects, and REPL-driven development, but gradually rigid enough to be useful when things grow larger and more solidified.