Did enough of them use an editor/IDE that could
take advantage of a static type system?
Just because the language is static, that doesn't mean it benefits from an IDE.
For instance, Scala has fairly good integration on top of Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA, however every time I try doing some work in Scala, I end up cursing and screaming, because these Scala IDE plugins are slow, incomplete and unstable and get in my way. And I can't blame their authors, because Scala is a difficult language to deal with.
Another example would be C++, which has been around for a very long time and is one of the most popular programming languages ever. And yet even Visual Studio has problems with its refactoring/IntelliSense support.
And then there are the Smalltalk environments, still around, still kicking ass.
Here's the thing ... there are static languages, and then there are languages designed for usage within an IDE ;-) Java, C# and Smalltalk are like that, while Scala, Haskell and C++ aren't.
For instance, Scala has fairly good integration on top of Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA, however every time I try doing some work in Scala, I end up cursing and screaming, because these Scala IDE plugins are slow, incomplete and unstable and get in my way. And I can't blame their authors, because Scala is a difficult language to deal with.
Another example would be C++, which has been around for a very long time and is one of the most popular programming languages ever. And yet even Visual Studio has problems with its refactoring/IntelliSense support.
And then there are the Smalltalk environments, still around, still kicking ass.
Here's the thing ... there are static languages, and then there are languages designed for usage within an IDE ;-) Java, C# and Smalltalk are like that, while Scala, Haskell and C++ aren't.