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> Inferred return types don't make refactoring easier. In my experience they make it much more difficult, because you have to look at function implementation to understand what it does.

My editor/IDE does show the inferred type to me though. I don't have to look at the function implementation. If I had to, I would agree with you.

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I think locking use of a language into particular editors is a step several decades backward into Borland-land. I'm not at all confident that "just stop writing types in source code because the magic editor will show them anyway" is a better posture than "just have the magic editor auto-fill the types".

I totally get your point and it's valid. But I think this ship has sailed a long time ago.

With modern languages having adhoc polymorphism, inheritance and different kinds of dispatch as well as extension methods etc., without an IDE you are already lost anyways.

E.g. in rust you won't know where a trait is implemented and how it will behave, in kotlin you won't know if a method exists on the object or comes from somewhere else etc.

The trend is going to more supportive but also more complex languages and tooling is naturally adapting to that.

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