Another problem is that statically typed languages can have long compile cycles.
That only applies if you compile all classes at once. Netbeans (and probably others as well) compile Java classes instantly because they only compile what's changed.
there didn't seem to be a way to reload new DLLs without restarting the development server.
I have seen environments for Java that could reload JAR-files. Perhaps DLLs are different, but that has little to do with a statically typed language.
That only applies if you compile all classes at once.
Unfortunately, a lot of post-processors like PostSharp aren't smart enough to do that. Even though Visual Studio was only compiling once, PostSharp seemed to require a lot of time to do its thing.
I have seen environments for Java that could reload JAR-files. Perhaps DLLs are different, but that has little to do with a statically typed language.
I'd be interested if anyone knows of an environment for a statically typed language that could do this quickly and without losing run-time data.
In a dynamically typed language, altering the server environment at runtime incurs only the cost of evaluating the code. I can inject code at any point, redefine functions, query the state of the current data structures, and so forth. The entire environment is mutable; something that seems like it would be difficult to do with static types.
That only applies if you compile all classes at once. Netbeans (and probably others as well) compile Java classes instantly because they only compile what's changed.
there didn't seem to be a way to reload new DLLs without restarting the development server.
I have seen environments for Java that could reload JAR-files. Perhaps DLLs are different, but that has little to do with a statically typed language.