i appreciate type checking so much more now than i used to, and i find that i disliked it most when i needed it most (i.e., i blanched at it more when i was a worse programmer, even more likely to make type errors than i am now).
there are categories of checks in application code (as well as whole categories of simple unit tests) that i just wouldn't have to write with a static type checker. additionally, as other comments have pointed out, it'd make it easier to automatically refactor things.
i started coming around on it with groovy a number of years ago (after sorta hating the type checker in java/c/c++ for years before that). i'd find myself writing a bunch of untyped code, but then i'd also find myself going back and specifying types as i wrote tests, because it was often easier to just specify the type than to write a test for the possibility of the wrong type coming in.
as someone who mostly writes ruby code these days, i'd love to see an optional type checker get added.
You switched from Java to Apache Groovy to lose the static type checking, then later stuck types in your Groovy code to make it act like Java. Sounds like Groovy's value-add to the ecosystem was providing the syntax for doing that without writing `Object` everywhere.
i appreciate type checking so much more now than i used to, and i find that i disliked it most when i needed it most (i.e., i blanched at it more when i was a worse programmer, even more likely to make type errors than i am now).
there are categories of checks in application code (as well as whole categories of simple unit tests) that i just wouldn't have to write with a static type checker. additionally, as other comments have pointed out, it'd make it easier to automatically refactor things.
i started coming around on it with groovy a number of years ago (after sorta hating the type checker in java/c/c++ for years before that). i'd find myself writing a bunch of untyped code, but then i'd also find myself going back and specifying types as i wrote tests, because it was often easier to just specify the type than to write a test for the possibility of the wrong type coming in.
as someone who mostly writes ruby code these days, i'd love to see an optional type checker get added.