Getting the type of a value is useful to beginners and belongs in a tutorial. The one time I tried Perl 6 was a few weeks ago, and it took a while to find out how to do this exact thing.
The article you've linked is about unityped languages. Perl 6 is not unityped.
To quote the conclusion of the article you linked:
> Why should you care? Because, I argue, that a fully expressive language is one that supports the delicate interplay between static and dynamic techniques. Languages that force only one perspective on you ... hobble you; languages that admit both modes of reasoning enable you and liberate you from the tyranny of a single type.
It would seem he ought to love Perl 6.
"Getting beyond static vs dynamic" may be of interest:
