In C#, we have implicit and explicit conversions. In both cases the idea is that we, the readers of the code, are not surprised by any conversions that happen. That’s why we can freely intermix ints with floats in a floating point calculation and everything turns out just fine. The ints are implicitly converted to floats (there’s no data loss) and the calculation comes out right. However, when there’s a possibility of some kind of data loss (say, converting a ulong to a long variable) you have to explicitly state the conversion in order to say “yep, I know what I’m doing; move along, nothing to see here.” Of course, the explicit conversion does come with an implied contract – that you have, you know, actually determined that the possible loss of data is benign – but otherwise just have at it. […]