[seanmcdirmid]

I'm not sure. You can look at dynamic language libraries and see similar increases in complexity (batteries included began with python), while they cannot benefit from code completion very much given a lack of static type info. The increase in library complexity is probably more related to demands on what we need to write where tooling is just a supporter.

[dman]

Java and Python are good languages to compare here since Java appears to have the most money thrown at IDE's in the recent past. Python has a few IDE's but theyre nowhere as magical as Java based IDE's. The average python api that I have come across is usually much more concise than its Java equivalent and there is a strong culture of dwim in the Python community. How much of this is a result of the tooling support for either language and how much is a cultural artifact of the respective community is an open question.