Can someone please tell me what is so attractive about a dynamically typed language? It's not like it makes anyone's life easier – it just leads to more unexpected errors.

I personally prefer strongly typed languages myself, and am loving typescript atm.

But I agree, if not coded correctly, it can lead to all sorts of errors and headaches. I think they are good to get something out quick. Like when I'm starting up a brand new web app it's nice just to throw variables everywhere without classes etc. thinking that I will eventually make them strongly typed which rarely happens

For the same reason we don't write in assembly. Abstraction!

But preference is king.

@dbkirk4211 Hmm, I don't quite see your analogy. Yes, any sane developer writes most of their code in some form of compiled language so they can deal with "ideas rather than events," but all languages I'm talking about deal with ideas, just handled in different ways.
But as you said, it is centered around preference. I use to like dynamically typed languages when I first started learning, but that was because I was scared of strictly typed languages since I didn't know much about them.

it's attractive because it does make it easier... at least in the minds of its creators

the whole goal of what we do is to make something easier, faster and better. we, developers / software engineers, accomplish that through abstraction.

CPU instruction sets, languages, operating systems, applications, frameworks, and libraries all share that same goal.

you can even make a website without knowledge of CSS, JS, or HTML

does anyone still deal with pointers? not really. garbage collection ftw?

I think you mean ARC for the win. 😉

I agree.

It's all about preference.

If you write shitty JavaScript, stop that!
If you write shitty Java, it's your fault.
If you write shitty Python, ...
...
...

Sometimes you join a project where you make the shitty code base less shitty until you can replace the shitty stack with a less shitty stack. Ultimately, making the shitty application less shitty as well.

and with that, I'll call it a night.

@snoopy Whoops! I meant to say "compiled or interpreted language," in other words, not in straight up assembly (even though assembly is still interpreted to an extent). Trust me, I don't intent to start a war here. 😉
I just don't quite understand how dynamically typed languages are easier to use. You don't wire much more code in strictly typed languages, and you probably type less in the end since the IDE is smart enough to give more relevant code completion suggestions.