"static vs dynamic is down to personal preferences" was the running thesis of some of Steve Yegge's essays. His "Portrait of a N00b" is more/less one aspect of this.
For static-lovers, the idea of "just fix it if it breaks in production" is horrible.
For dynamic-lovers, the idea of "spend time on work which doesn't get you closer to solving the problem" is essentially wasted effort. (Static-types are 'meta' code; the equivalent program works just as well without the types declared).
I've heard a good strategy is that the first-iteration should be dynamic (this gets the problem solved quickly), and static typing is good for further iterations (static-typing is better at conserving what's there).
For static-lovers, the idea of "just fix it if it breaks in production" is horrible. For dynamic-lovers, the idea of "spend time on work which doesn't get you closer to solving the problem" is essentially wasted effort. (Static-types are 'meta' code; the equivalent program works just as well without the types declared).
I've heard a good strategy is that the first-iteration should be dynamic (this gets the problem solved quickly), and static typing is good for further iterations (static-typing is better at conserving what's there).