Why is C# statically typed?

Question

I am a PHP web programmer who is trying to learn C#.

I would like to know why C# requires me to specify the data type when creating a variable.

Class         


        

Answer 1

C#, as others have pointed out, is a strongly, statically-typed language.

By stating up front what the type you're intending to create is, you'll receive compile-time warnings when you try to assign an illegal value. By stating up front what type of parameters you accept in methods, you receive those same compile-time warnings when you accidentally pass nonsense into a method that isn't expecting it. It removes the overhead of some paranoia on your behalf.

Finally, and rather nicely, C# (and many other languages) doesn't have the same ridiculous, "convert anything to anything, even when it doesn't make sense" mentality that PHP does, which quite frankly can trip you up more times than it helps.