[tyingq]

To be fair, "5" == 5 is true for Awk, Perl, and Tcl. All of which were pretty popular at the time.

Not discounting other implications of a 10 day design period :)

[int_19h]

Tcl isn't quite the same, since "5" and 5 are literally the same exact value in it, in all respects - not just equality. It's more of a problem in languages where, at the same time, 5+5==10 but "5"+"5"=="55".

[tyingq]

Ah yes, sure. Though "5"+"5" isn't "55" in Perl, Awk, or PHP either.