> Erlang's niche is distributed systems anyway, an area where static typing is at odds more often than not.
I've worked on a lot of distributed systems, and I don't see what this has to do with anything. Yes, static typing doesn't prevent you from doing any of the things you mentioned like changing your API out from under someone, but it's not supposed to. It Does however prevent certain classes of mistake in the individual service or executable, which is still a laudable goal in and of itself. It's not a silver bullet, but it's no less useful in distributed systems than it is anywhere else.
Also, are we talking about strong typing or static typing? The OP said one thing and this reply says another. Either way, both are nice in distributed systems too.
I've worked on a lot of distributed systems, and I don't see what this has to do with anything. Yes, static typing doesn't prevent you from doing any of the things you mentioned like changing your API out from under someone, but it's not supposed to. It Does however prevent certain classes of mistake in the individual service or executable, which is still a laudable goal in and of itself. It's not a silver bullet, but it's no less useful in distributed systems than it is anywhere else.
Also, are we talking about strong typing or static typing? The OP said one thing and this reply says another. Either way, both are nice in distributed systems too.