Reminder: strict type checking is more trouble than it’s worth for some of us.
Ask yourself why dynamic type languages keep appearing, despite a fanatical resolve to purge them from the face of the earth? It’s almost as if some people prefer them.
But I guess the knowledge of salvation by compile time binding must be brought to the late binding heathens, to use a poor analogy.
On the other hand, I’m willing to admit that strict Compile time type checking is what many or most people prefer.
I generally agree, except if I don't. Whether or not that is the case, I'm entirely uncertain about!
Generalizing to transportation one might ask: What is the better transportation device, a boat or a horse?
... of which one can somewhat reasonably conclude, that whether the question itself is the right question, is the real question.
Few oppose types if they don't have to do anything at all and if it doesn't take any of their time either in runtime, compile time, or otherwise. Realities being what they are, there is always at least some parts of the aforementioned that is false for any type system that is actually useful.
Because of this, and for a few other similar characteristics of types and computation, it boils down to nothing but a question of which kind of tradeoffs people find palatable.
Given that premise, there should be no surprise that the answers are subjective no matter the responder. The question of better is here nothing but an entirely subjective question veiled as an ostensibly objective one.
One thing I don’t miss is C style Wild West access.
E.g., My coworker grabbed a word from somewhere, slapped a cast on it and proceeded to write into it. Hilarity ensues.
All the burden of explicit compile time checking, but no guarantees that anything is what you said it is by the time your coworker uses it. Of course, no computer Run-time is wasted on silly things like type, bounds or null checking, either.
Ask yourself why dynamic type languages keep appearing, despite a fanatical resolve to purge them from the face of the earth? It’s almost as if some people prefer them.
But I guess the knowledge of salvation by compile time binding must be brought to the late binding heathens, to use a poor analogy.
On the other hand, I’m willing to admit that strict Compile time type checking is what many or most people prefer.