It looks like there's two directions for a language's type system to go: 1) strict typing, but with lots of constructs (e.g. inheritance, interfaces, generics,

It looks like there's two directions for a language's type system to go: 1) strict typing, but with lots of constructs (e.g. inheritance, interfaces, generics, extension methods) to work around that strictness so that you can do what you want, if you understand the rules and syntax to get it to compile. 2) loose, "duck typing" so you just do what you want, but without compiler checking that it's possible, and with the posibility that it fails at runtime if the right method isn't found. C# is in the first direction.