[colin_jack]

I actually don't think its so much about code safety either. To me the real top advantage of static typing is that it leaves the code self-documenting, easier to navigate around, easier to refactor as you say...etc.

Having said that the flexibility JS gives you is huge, I've played with Scala and its at the opposite end of the scale. I don't mind that but I am more interested in things like gradual typing being added JS, even if that just ended up being checked at run-time, because it gives you some of the big advantages of static typing without sacrificing all the of the dynamic goodness.

[stakent]

Try Facebook's flow.

http://flowtype.org/

[colin_jack]

Yeah I plan to ta, to be honest I like what I've seen/used of TypeScript too. However I'm thinking the big win will be in the longer term when JS picks up some of the ideas.