> Don't we have decades of research about the improvements in productivity and correctness brought by static type checking?
Yes, we have decades of such research, and the aggregate result of all those studies is that no productivity gain can be significantly demonstrated for static over dynamic, and vice-versa.
Not sure what result you are referring to but in my experience, many of the academic research papers use “students” as test subjects. This is especially fucked up when you want to get Software Engineering results. Outside Google et al where you can get corporate sanctioned software engineering data at scale, I would be wary most academic results in the area could be garbage.
Yes, we have decades of such research, and the aggregate result of all those studies is that no productivity gain can be significantly demonstrated for static over dynamic, and vice-versa.