
The Shocking Secret About Static Types (2016) - spiffytech
https://medium.com/javascript-scene/the-shocking-secret-about-static-types-514d39bf30a3
======
karmakaze
Reducing bug density is not the main value of static typing as the article
states. It vaguely recognizes other values, ending with static types being
overrated for reducing bugs.

 _The famous marketing rhetoric is “large-scale web applications are hard
without static types”. It’s true that static types power some really great
developer tools such as jump to definition and automatic refactoring, and
those tools feel like they make us more productive. (And may actually make us
more productive, we need more study on the real benefits of static types)._

Productivity is what it's about. And if you have increated productivity then
you may have the same rate of bugs per delivered feature, you have more bugs
delivered per unit time which is a nonsensical metric. The main thing is you
have more featured delivered per unit time.

------
AnimalMuppet
Not as clickbait as the headline might lead you to believe.

TL;DR: The evidence is that static types reduce bugs, but not as much as you
might expect. Test-driven development (per studies) does more to reduce bug
count. But static types _are_ good for enabling tools that can help you
program better.

