It's not even the fact that JS is dynamically typed it's that it's the worst of dynamic typing - magic strings, monkey-patching, retarded scoping rules coupled with callback pyramids all over the place, no proper modules - you just get no meaningful help from tooling as soon as your code base grows to even medium complexity. ES6 helps but TS brings all that + more.
Python IDEs like PyCharm offer far superior tooling even without static typing, and Clojure is so nice I don't usually even need the tools.
I get your point, but while I am a big advocate of typescript, I think that the topology of the javascript language is perfectly suited for front-end development.
There are a lot of impedance mismatches to deal with in the front end, (javascript to DOM, json to javascript, diversity of execution environments etc...), and I feel that when correctly used, dynamism the way javascript does it is a god-send.
All my core developments are in typescript, but in many situations it feels so magic to just do : myprop.undeclared = value and encapsulate the stuff in a knockout component written in typescript, while the situation would have caused a drama / major redesign in a back-end static language (C#, Java etc...). There are many valid scenarios (not resulting from a wrong OOP design) where this is very useful.
I'm actually amazed that people who designed Javascript got it so right. Static languages are great in the backend, typescript is great for the front-end and solved a real maintenance and Q&A issue by providing a level of typing and popularizing OOP in the front-end, but javacript is great for the web browser in general. Typescript is the piece that was missing, but this doesn't mean that javascript is broken, the elasticity of the language is a very powerful and elegant solution for the problems specific to the front-end.
>myprop.unDeclared = value and encapsulate the stuff in a knockout component written in typescript
And when I need to read this code later on and figure out what the shape of myprop is what do I do ? When I come across a function in a different file that touches that "unDeclared" property how the hell do I figure out what type it is, where it was assigned, etc. How do I find all references to that if "unDeclared" is a common word or is used on multiple types as a property name ?
JavaScript is just a nightmare to maintain - sure it might be easier to bang out the code initially - but good luck finding someone who will maintain that stuff once the author moves on. Hell - good luck coming back to your code base a year later and finding your way around that. From my experience most of non-trivial JS ends up being write only.
> I think that the topology [emphasis mine] of the javascript language is perfectly suited for front-end development.
What exactly does “topology” mean in the context of programming languages? Are you trying to pull a Derrida (using fancy words without any actual meaning)?
> I'm actually amazed that people who designed Javascript got it so right.
Are you assuming that, even with a better language, the DOM's crappiness was inevitable, and thus we need a loosey-goosey language like JavaScript to deal with it? I doubt this is the case. Good languages make it easier to design good programs and APIs.
Python IDEs like PyCharm offer far superior tooling even without static typing, and Clojure is so nice I don't usually even need the tools.