[pansa2]

> all the popular dynamic languages have slowly become statically typed

I’ve heard this before, but it’s not really true. Yes, maybe the majority of JavaScript code is now statically-typed, via Typescript. Some percentage of Python code is (I don’t know the numbers). But that’s about it.

Very few people are using static typing in Ruby, Lua, Clojure, Julia, etc.

[jascha_eng]

Types become very useful when the code base reaches a certain level of sophistication and complexity. It makes sense that for a little script they provide little benefit but once you are working on a code base with 5+ engineers and no longer understand every part of it having some more strict guarantees and interfaces defined is very very helpful. Both for communicating to other devs as well as to simply eradicate a good chunk of possible errors that happen when interfaces are not clear.

[Kwpolska]

How many people are using Ruby, Lua, Clojure, Julia, etc.?

[pansa2]

Fair enough, apart from Ruby they’re all pretty niche.

OTOH I’m not arguing that most code should be dynamically-typed. Far from it. But I do think dynamic typing has its place and shouldn’t be rejected entirely.

Also, I would have preferred it if Python had concentrated on being the best language in that space, rather than trying to become a jack-of-all-trades.

[Hamuko]

I have my doubts about majority of JavaScript being TypeScript.

[pansa2]

You’re probably right. RedMonk [0] shows JavaScript and TypeScript separately and has the former well above the latter.

[0] https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2025/06/18/language-rankings-1-2...

[seanparsons]

Even if they're not written as TypeScript, there are usually add on definitions like "@types/prettier" and the like.

[majoe]

I disagree for Julia, but that probably depends on the definition of static typing.

For the average Julia package I would guess, that most types are statically known at compile time, because dynamic dispatch is detrimental for performance. I consider, that to be the definition of static typing.

That said, Julia functions seldomly use concrete types and are generic by default. So the function signatures often look similar to untyped Python, but in my opinion this is something entirely different.

[tinnet]

At least in ruby theres mayor code bases using stripes sorbet and the official RBS standard for type hints. Notably its big code bases with large amounts of developers, fitting in with the trend most people in this discussion point to.

[seanparsons]

My last job was working at a company that is notorious for Ruby and even though I was mostly distant from it, there seemed to be a big appetite for Sorbet there.

[pansa2]

The big difference between static typing in Python and Ruby is that Guido et al have embraced type hints, whereas Matz considers them to be (the Ruby equivalent of) “unpythonic”. Most of each language’s community follows their (ex-)BDFL’s lead.

[iLoveOncall]

PHP as well has become statically typed.

All the languages you name are niche languages compared to Python, JS (/ TS) and PHP. Whether you like it or not.