[wvenable]

> This isn't so much about knowing what's going on internally (binary representations)

Strong typing is all about the binary representation. SWTH just cares about the values. I don't see the advantage in caring at the call site whether or not this integer is a string of numbers or a 64bit value.

But I'd probably be as ok with strong typing as you are with Strong-weak typing if PHP's casting rules weren't so permissive. If you have a function that takes an integer but you have a string, it would be logical to cast that string to an integer. But PHP casts are very permissive, and any value can be casted from a string to an int. So casting negates the benefit of type hinting.