Reliable dot completion without some batshit insane state-dependent VM-as-a-dev-env-or-constantly-running-tests system is... well, let's just say made much easier with static typing.
I really could give a shit about what people think is "enough" (IMO, keeping stuff simple, as in simplicity of implementation, as in worse-is-better, is the only answer) I just want to hit dot and have a pretty good idea what I'm allowed to do. And static typing, in practice, appears to help there.
Pry for ruby gives me great dot completion and isn't batshit insane. Most diehard dynamic typists live in their repl. When I use java with IntelliJ I miss my repl. I do gain some things from the IDE, but I feel hamstrung compared to my repl.
> I don't want a repl for editing. I want to write code in a friggen editor and have dot completion work.
I don't either, which is why I use Emacs with something like SLIME or at least inferior-lisp. But I'm sure you've tried this already, and it's not for everyone of course.
I find autocompletion and Intellisense-like features useful, but not really useful enough to make me pick a language based on them. I don't type terribly quickly either, but that doesn't worry me as most of my time is spent debugging and not typing.
Of course static typing does help catch some bugs before you get to debug them, but I think talking about autocomplete and dot-completion is kind of a distraction.
Pry knows its place, it doesn't pretend its a nice environment for writing real code - instead when you want to edit a method definition you type "edit-method my_method"[1] and pry will open the source file of that method in an editor and take you to the exact line where the method is found.
Technically true, but I write most of my code in the REPL, then use edit-method to get it into my editor.
Fom the link: NOTE: If you're using Ruby 1.9, you can use edit-method on methods defined from the Pry console. As these methods have no associated file, this implies the -p switch. This functionality doesn't yet work for Ruby 1.8.
Minus the part about t only working well for java and having to write your code in java ;)
I also use rubymine for ruby development and it gives me a lot of the IntelliJ stuff, but it doesn't always work. I.e cmd-b to jump to the method definition.
I really could give a shit about what people think is "enough" (IMO, keeping stuff simple, as in simplicity of implementation, as in worse-is-better, is the only answer) I just want to hit dot and have a pretty good idea what I'm allowed to do. And static typing, in practice, appears to help there.
But hey, man, I'm not advocating you use it.