[Joeri]

If memory serves AS2 was supposed to be more or less the same as ecmascript 4. The problem is ecmascript 4 never made it out of committee. With the reboot in the ecmascript committee that produced the harmony release, we're now on the road to get optional strict typing. For me the typing is the only thing really missing from javascript.

You can get quite far on the way to strict typing with a good IDE like jetbrains. It has very thorough 'compile time' checks (while editing). I almost don't miss strict typing when writing large pieces of javascript in jetbrains.

[secoif]

I've never, not even once, missed static typing since accepting the move to JavaScript; you just get used to it. You shouldn't rely on the compiler to detect 'errors', rely on your test cases.