Here's a very rough list of some languages' type system power in increasing order. This is meant to provide a rough sense of type system power and shouldn't be taken as an absolute. The languages grouped together here can be very different from each other. Each type system has its own quirks and most of them are very complex.

• C (1972), Go (2009): These aren't very powerful at all, with no support for generic types. We can't define a MyList type that can be used as a "list of ints", "list of strings", etc. Instead, it will be a "list of unspecified values". The programmer must manually say "this is a string" each time one is removed from the list, which may fail at runtime.
• Java (1995), C# (2000): These both have generic types, so we can say MyList<String> to get a list of strings, with the compiler being aware of and enforcing that constraint. Items retrieved from the list will have type String, enforced at compile time as usual, so runtime errors are less likely.
• Haskell (1990), Rust (2010), Swift (2014): These all share several advanced features, including generics, algebraic data types (ADTs), and type classes or something similar (respectively: type classes, traits, and protocols). Rust and Swift have more mass appeal than Haskell, with strong organizations pushing them (Mozilla and Apple, respectively).
• Agda (2007), Idris (2011): These support dependent types, allowing types like "a function that takes an integer x, and an integer y, where y is greater than x". Even the "y is greater than x" constraint is enforced at compile time: at runtime, y will never be less than or equal to x, no matter what happens. Very subtle but important properties of systems can be verified statically in these languages. Only a small minority of programmers learn them, but some become very excited about them.

There's a clear trend toward more powerful systems over time, especially when judging by language popularity rather than languages simply existing. The notable exception is Go, which explains why many static language advocates shun it as a step backwards. Group two (Java and C#) are mainstream languages that are mature and widely used. Group three looks poised to enter the mainstream, with big backers like Mozilla (Rust) and Apple (Swift). Group four (Idris and Agda) are nowhere near mainstream use, but that may change eventually; group three wasn't anywhere near mainstream use just ten years ago.