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873 points belter | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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Kototama ◴[] No.42947000[source]
> Typed languages are essential on teams with mixed experience levels

I like this one because it puts this endless dilemma in a human context. Most discussions are technical (static typing ease refactoring and safety, dynamic typing is easier to learn and better for interactive programming etc.) and ignore the users, the programmers.

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wesselbindt ◴[] No.42948492[source]
I'm kind of wondering where the "mixed experience levels" part comes from. What is it about more homogeneously skilled teams that makes them less susceptible to the productivity boost that statically typed languages give in large code bases?
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1. bluGill ◴[] No.42949682[source]
> What is it about more homogeneously skilled teams

They are a strawman example that doesn't exist in the real world.

Companies will be in big trouble in a few years when the team retires, people find new jobs, someone dies... All of them mean that a homogeneously skilled team will exist for at most a few years if you have one. As a company you need to ensure you have a program to train in new people.

I have long believed that when someone retires you should replace them with someone fresh out of school, promoting people all the way down to fill the opening. If someone finds a new job you can replace them with someone else with similar experience, but when someone retires they should be replaced by someone you already have groomed for the job.