The two types of programming languages static and dynamic both have advantages and disadvantages. Here we will look at some of these benefits so that in the future you can decide what is the better choice for your program.
Benefits of Static Languages
1. Protection from Runtime Errors
The best benefit of static type languages. Is that a lot of runtime errors become compile-time errors because the compiler makes sure the code you are writing is correct. This removes the need to go through many lines of code to find a bug, fix, and re-run through the lines of code all to find you haven’t fixed it is a slow and frustrating development process. IDEs highlighting in red immediately that you are doing something wrong is much more appealing.
2. IDE Assistance
Integrated Developing Environment or IDE for short is software for building applications that combines common developer tools into a single graphical user interface. IDE’s can be useful because it knows more about your code, this in turn can assist you in many ways. For example, with auto-complete when typing your code and error assistance such as pointing out errors when typing your program.
3. Expressive Language Features
By using the compiler you can use the type system which will provide certain features unique to the language being used and make your program more robust this also helps when making your program.
The compiler can use the type system to provide language features that are more expressive and succinct. For example, Kotlin’s trailing lambda combined with receivers can be used to create type safe DSLs. For example, TornadoFX uses this to define views.
Benefits of Dynamic Languages
1. Less Boilerplate Code
Dynamic languages are generally more concise than static type languages. Which can lead to an easier start when programming your program, because they require less code to start your project.
2. Fast Development Cycles
Dynamic languages tend to be interpreted, this leads to the languages' ability to make changes quickly and then instantly run the program. You can also run your program with errors that will give you feedback immediately. This also leads to fast start-up times, which in fact is another benefit of dynamically typed languages.
3. Consuming Data Sources Requires No Additional Code
We don’t need to create classes to read JSON, SQL, XML etc. We can simply read the data and start using it. Sometimes we still create classes or named tuples to make the code that uses these objects easier to work with, but it isn’t necessary.
Conclusion
These are just a few benefits, there are many more pros and cons to the two types of languages but for new programmers, dynamic type languages are usually the easier languages to learn. Such as JavaScript, Ruby, Python, Lisp, PHP, and Objective C. Whereas statically typed languages are Java, C, C++, and Fortran. Those require more understanding and are closer to machine language. With newer updates of Python and JavaScript, they have added some small abilities to be able to add static typed features in their language to make more of a hybrid typed language.
