Disclaimer: I’m a strong advocate for static typing.
I absolutely see the connection. One of the advantages of static typing is that it makes a lot of refactoring trivial (or much more than it would be otherwise). One of the side effects of making anything more trivial is that people will be more inclined to do it, without thinking as much about the consequences. It shouldn’t be a surprise that, absent other safeguards to discourage it, people will translate trivial refactoring into unexpected breaking changes.
Moreover, they may do this consciously, on the basis that “it was trivial for me to refactor, it should be trivial to adapt downstream.” I’ll even admit to making exactly that judgment call, in exactly those terms. Granted I’m much less cavalier about it when the breaking changes affect people I don’t interface with on a regular basis. But I’m much less cavalier about that sort of impact across the board than I’ve observed in many of my peers.
I absolutely see the connection. One of the advantages of static typing is that it makes a lot of refactoring trivial (or much more than it would be otherwise). One of the side effects of making anything more trivial is that people will be more inclined to do it, without thinking as much about the consequences. It shouldn’t be a surprise that, absent other safeguards to discourage it, people will translate trivial refactoring into unexpected breaking changes.
Moreover, they may do this consciously, on the basis that “it was trivial for me to refactor, it should be trivial to adapt downstream.” I’ll even admit to making exactly that judgment call, in exactly those terms. Granted I’m much less cavalier about it when the breaking changes affect people I don’t interface with on a regular basis. But I’m much less cavalier about that sort of impact across the board than I’ve observed in many of my peers.