[stcredzero]

Choosing to work with dynamic typing and exercise vigilance is a reasonable choice. (In fact this is what I choose.)

The biggest chunk of my professional work is still in Smalltalk.

But choosing to work with static typing and refusing to take advantage of how it lets a toolchain help you is not a choice that makes sense to me.

Yet despite being a Smalltalker for years, I'm still an advocate of static type annotation. It enables you to do more refactoring than not having it. It enables you to know sooner about incorrectly written code.

That you should know how to operate without the tools is one thing - I strongly support it. But maintaining your practice in doing so is quite another.

The "maintaining your practice" I'm advocating in this thread is merely: "Code without an IDE once in awhile to make sure you know how to operate without the tools." You don't have to fire drill every day. There is some benefit to doing it once in awhile, however.

I'm not advocating not using an IDE. I'm merely advocating for knowing exactly what it is the IDE is doing for you and doing to you. It's just wise practice for any professional power tool.