In any case, I wouldn't consider static typing an arcane computer science concern at all... most of the more popular languages these days use static typing.
" everyone else jumps off a cliff, why not you"
The PL community certainly has fads, and this is one of them. Static typing is a delightful *research area*, but it's usefulness is mostly unproven. PL people don't bother -- they just publish 10-50 line neat-looking programs, make broad statements about how all the other PL guys dig static typing, too, and conclude that it must be good.
-Lex
You want strong typing? Look at the problems it causes JAVA wrt to Collection classes, and the LOVELY solution that JAVA came up with for 1.5.
I'm starting to think that all strongly typed OOP languages eventually end up looking like C++, as more 'features' ( hacks ) are used to work around the 'benefits' (bugs) of static typing....
"Strong Typing" is good... "garbage collection" is slow... ( compared to tracking down memory leaks? )
These dead horses get beatten alot.
-Daniel