Another superb rant by Steve Yegge on dynamic languages:
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/05/dynamic-languages-strike-back.html
The comment section’s good too – especially the long comment by Dan Weinreb of Lisp / ITA software fame. Steve’s got the same problem some of my self-taught friends do (hi Bob, hi Jim!): he’ll say something in a strongly opinionated way, without giving supporting evidence. I think that makes people think he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. So people tend to write him off. But if you talk with him, it almost always turns out his strong opinions are backed by some pretty deep experience and insight. I’ve learned to give Steve (and my self-taught friends) the benefit of the doubt.