Refactoring Ruby is painful in a large project, even with decent test coverage (and a large portion of the tests basically enforce what you'd get automatically with static typing). C++ is doable in that you'll get (increasingly humane with clang and recent GCCs) compiler errors when you've forgotten some detail. But refactoring Java is positively germane with all of the tools that are enabled by such a consistent VM-model. (It really is neat to be able to rename a method in an object on 100k LOC project simply by renaming it in one place or to change a signature with helpers along the way.)

Some of that makes those languages less fun (and quick) to work with initially, but for projects that are likely to eventually grow quite large, there can be an eventual pay-off.

We're not missing static typing as far as I know. We still are able to ship a lot of changes every month. I'm not sure if it is our structure (idiomatic Rails), test coverage (over 85%), something else, or maybe we should miss it but don't realize it.

One disadvantage is that static typing causes more lines of code than dynamic code. And code size is the best predictor of code quality http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/10669678292/size-is-the-bes...

Not if the statically typed language uses inference.

I haven't had enough chance to do it, but I'm at least intrigued.

I think I can do a lot better than that now that I'm using Scala. Certainly I don't feel like I've hit the limit yet.

How would you verify the correctness of this function with types alone:

Integer add(Integer a, Integer b) { return a + b; }

How would types verify for me that the result is correct and not a+b+1?

Formal proofs work for this but to make them work you need more than just types.

That sounds like a joke but it's what going overboard with dependently typed programming languages is like.

Types are awesome. Languages like Rust give them to me without having to learn a ton of theory. However, eventually, I realise that my types have boxed me into a certain design - and I need to refactor heavily, which involves rewriting a large chunk of my types which I was relying on to show me that my code was correct.

Functionality testing will tell you when you've failed to encode an invariant in your type, and there's a good chance that the reason you failed to is just that it's more effort than it's worth. Else we'd all be writing proofs for every program in Coq.

In practice, as I alluded to in my previous post, you really want types combined with broad functionality testing across a range of scenarios. You really don't want to be relying on "it compiles, I assume it works" unless you're able to back out of a deployment in seconds when it doesn't.

Some things are probably not worth typing, but if they're not worth typing they're not worth testing either. Whatever your target defect rate, the most efficient way to hit that target is using types.

Sure there is. Stop testing random bits of internal functionality, start testing huge modules with well-known (semi-public) APIs, or your entire program, and combine that with a ~reasonable~ type system. You want full-system testing. You don't need a whole lot of tests to be sure "it's basically working", and it's a lot easier to turn repeatable bug reports into tests.

When you inevitably break a piece of functionality despite your types, you might not know precisely how it broke, but at least you know it's broken without a customer calling you up. And every time a customer does call you up, you can add a full-functionality test - "this is what the user did, and this is what I expect from that".

Every other engineering branch backs up good practices and solid math with lots of testing. So should we, types or no types.

https://spin.atomicobject.com/2014/12/09/typed-language-tdd-... makes the case that many tests can be replaced more effectively by types (though the use of Java makes the point less clear than it should be, and means that some properties are so difficult to express through types that the author prefers to use tests). That one can prove correctness with types is well-known, and it stands to reason that there is no need for tests for formally verified code. These two things together suggest that there's never a point on the defect rate/cost curve that's easier to reach with tests than with types, but they don't rule it out entirely.

  model.setTitle( dto.getDescription() );

getDescription simply needs to return a Description object while getTitle returns a Title object. Duh.

Only in the final rendering should it get turned into a string and there it should only accept a Title type for doing so.

Okay, I'm kind of joking, but this is seriously the solution if you really want to get down to it - primitive overuse is the problem, so wrap it in a type that makes it explicit. You need cheap and easy types to take full advantage of this sort of thing.

EDIT: And even with those reading code developed in such a way may go overboard at some point. I'm not sure as I haven't really seen it done to the fullest extent possible. Typically even when taking a fairly strong advantage of such a type system, unit tests and stuff are still used, but theoretically you could enforce their parameters entirely in the type system. Of course, that enforcement can also be incorrect, but it does make it clearer in many cases.

How does static typing ensure you're mapping the correct JSON input fields to your custom types?

Ideally you push it all the way out. Rather than JSON you use Thrift or similar where the messages are strongly typed.

But if you do use JSON, how much benefit does unit testing your JSON mapping really give you? The mapping in code is just a list of field:field pairs, the test is just the same thing, is there really any value in repeating it twice? I'd sooner rely on careful code review than a test.

The project I'm working in atm is neatly structured and at ±60K, but you definitely see certain team members knowing more about one part than the other. We've also started a POC to start moving to Typescript for the more critical areas of the application (services, data models).