You're not entirely wrong, but in the context of the specific example given (malloc), it's about as implicit as c++'s auto keyword, it just obscures type inform

You're not entirely wrong, but in the context of the specific example given (malloc), it's about as implicit as c++'s auto keyword, it just obscures type information on the right side instead of the left side of the assignment from the programmer. I would also argue that there's a hard to quantify harm in making code more verbose. More visual noise makes it harder to parse what's going on. Sure, one redundant cast isn't going to kill you. But many sources of repetition across an entire code base eventually turn it into a slog where the parts you want are obscured by useless noise.