Have Static Languages Won?

Which static language should supposedly have won?

An alternative is optional static languages like Groovy or alternatives like python Type Hints (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0484/) are better than pure dynamic languages.

They have won in theory: they are arguably better in every way than dynamically typed languages (DTL) in the sense that they offer all the advantages that used to be unique to DTL and, obviously, also all the advantages of STL (automatic refactorings, performance, ease of maintenance, etc...).

Javascript is the last serious holdover of the DTL generation but even it is showing tendencies to be replaced by STL (Typescript, Dart). It will take a while, though, but the trend is clear.

>You can have statically compiled languages that use type inference to realize what is effectively dynamic typing.

Just because you don't have to explicitly write out the type does not make it any less static.

I believe that the usual arguments against languages with static typing such as verbosity and lack of flexibility are largely eliminated by the more modern languages such as Scala, Kotlin or Typescript (though typescript is more "optional typing" than static really).

> Which static language should supposedly have won?

It's absolutely not that specific static languages have "won". But rather that the latest crop of static languages have proved that the oft-cited downsides of static typing, e.g. type stuttering in declarations, can be pragmatically addressed by other means, e.g. type inference. As such, the cost differential of static languages over dynamic is reduced to near-zero, and all of the benefits remain.

I don't really see an argument, or really counter-argument, in the linked post. The author complains that the current crop of dynamic languages are badly implemented, but I'm not sure that holds water when you look at e.g. Clojure. They claim the chief advantage of static languages is IDE support/integration, but that seems like a strawman to me, a fringe benefit of the real, structural advantages of an explicit type layer.