[ta_ca]

but you can misuse anything, + vs add was an example for this.

being able to misuse a PL i believe is not a bug but a feature. we really suck at predicting the future.

[stephc_int13]

This is not the role of langage designers to prevent bad programmers to write bad code.

But it is better to avoid giving them too many ways to shoot themselves in the foot.

Forcing the code to be explicit is good design, in my opinion, simply because it is much easier to write code than to read it, we have to put more weight on the clarity side.