I can’t imagine not having the ability for a variable to be one of multiple potential types. I could probably work around it, sure, but why would you want to?
i can't imagine why you would want that. for example, why would i want something defined as an integer hold something other than an integer? this is how strongly-typed languages work.
You definitely want an integer to always be an integer, but you often want to represent "A or B". E.g. user has a contact method that's a phone number or an email address. Result of validation is a validated value or a failure message.
