On: Type inference has usability problems

[maxxxxx]

This is highly personal. Best would be to have an IDE that shows the concrete types if desired by the user. In VS you can hover over a variable but permanent display would be nice too

[insertnickname → maxxxxx]

IntelliJ shows hints for inferred types.

[Quekid5 → insertnickname]

As a data point: I use Scala + IntelliJ and I've personally actually turned this off. If you have a half-way decent type system I tend to find that it just gets in the way -- at least if things have reasonable names.

(This is obviously a very personal preference and depends on whether it's a code base you're already familiar with, etc. etc.)

[azhenley → maxxxxx]

Running experiments would give us data on whether it is personal or not, and to what degree.

I know a lot of teams that conduct code reviews outside of the IDE, so your suggestion wouldn’t help those cases.