You Don’t Need Types in Ruby

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

There was a lively discussion on Hacker News here about Sorbet and static typing in Ruby that inspired this post.

It’s fascinating how people try to make Ruby look like a statically typed language. But this isn’t the first attempt — and every time, it ends up fighting against what Ruby fundamentally is.

Turning Ruby into Java isn’t progress. It’s a step backward.
Let me explain why.

How Ruby Deals with Types

Ruby is a dynamically typed, object-oriented language designed around message passing — an idea borrowed from Smalltalk.

Sorbet on @zhisme :: signal over noise

You Don’t Need Types in Ruby

How Ruby Deals with Types