[tialaramex]

It won't "overflow memory".

This says there will be an immutable array of six bytes, with the ASCII letters for "thing" in the first five and then the sixth is zero, this array can be coerced to the pointer type char* (a pointer to bytes) and then (though a modern C compiler will tell you this is a terrible idea) coerced to the signed integer type int.

The six byte array will end up in the "read only data" section of the executable, it doesn't "overflow memory" and isn't stored in the x. Even if you gave x a more sensible type "char*" that word "thing" isn't somehow stored in your variable, it's a pointer.

So, this isn't the same at all and you don't understand C as well as you thought you did.

Edited: fix escaping bold markers

[Pay08]

I'm fairly certain that the C standard doesn't specify that string literals should be placed into .rodata, just that changing mutating them is UB.

[tialaramex]

That's true, the systems where C was created do not have the relevant features, and I would expect they can't even "protect" that text so that although it's UB it would have worked fifty years ago to attempt the mutation whereas today that will segfault on a Unix.

[Pay08]

Compilers could choose to not place the literals into .rodata. Honestly, I don't know why it isn't at least an option on modern implementations.

[Spivak]

I was talking about the int being 32 bits and the pointer being 64 bits but go off. If you did a naive codegen of this without type checking where the compiler just said "yes ma'am blindly copying the value to &x" then you would clobber adjacent memory. That's the point I'm making, you rely on the type checker to make the types actually mean things and give you safety guarantees.

It feels stronger is languages where you can't even produce a running program if type checking fails but it's conceptually the same.

[tialaramex]

Python does have strong types, it's just that it's dynamically typed - the variables don't have assigned types in Python itself (hence type annotations and third party type checking). C claims to have strong types but it is weakly checked and full of unwise coercions - however it is statically typed and so variables have types.

If you want to see a language which does not have types you want the predecessor of C, B.

Imagining into existence a variant of C where assignment causes arbitrary memory overwrites isn't about type checking, that's not a "naive codegen" it's nonsense. If that was your point then you didn't do a good job of communicating it and it's still wrong.

[Pay08]

Where does C claim to have strong typing?

[tialaramex]

The quote about C being "strongly typed but weakly checked" is usually attributed to Dennis, one of C's co-creators. I am not able to pin it down to a recorded interview or written document but if you've used C you'll undoubtedly recognise the idea.