Why can't I define both implicit and explicit operators?

Question

Why I cannot define both implicit and explicit operators like so?

    public class C
    {
        public static implicit operator string(C c)
        {
             


        

Answer 1

Check this: Why can't coexist implicit and explicit operator of the same type in C#?

If you define an explicit operator, you will be able to do something like this:

Thing thing = (Thing)"value";

If you define an implicit operator, you can still do the above, but you can also take advantage of implicit conversion:

Thing thing = "value";

In short, explicit allows only explicit conversion, while implicit allows both explicit and implicit... hence the reason why you can only define one.

Answer 2

I don't know the technical limitation that prevents this, but I think they would have done this to prevent people from shooting their own feet off.

string imp = new C(); // = "implicit"
string exp = (string)new C(); // = "explicit"

That would drive me bonkers and makes no sense, C should only cast to a string 1 way, not 2 different ways.