> My own prediction is that TDD is the deciding factor.

If this turns out to be the case, then people would reach for statically typed languages to augment & cut-down on tests.

Like everyone here is saying, the pendulum is moving toward statically typed. The next generation will probably be in higher kinded types as we continue to attempt to write more generic code that cuts down on number of lines, but still preserves type guarantees.

Finally, I don't think it's appropriate to regard `Option[T]` as some mystical type. It's just a regular old generic class that wraps something. Scala programmers (and I'm sure others) have been doing this with `Either[A,B]` & `Option[A]` for awhile, but Swift was really clever in building it into the language with the `?` & `!` operators.