You might get behaviour that is a lot more difficult to spot in production when multiplying an integer by a string that starts with an integer, too. echo 1

You might get behaviour that is a lot more difficult to spot in production when multiplying an integer by a string that starts with an integer, too. echo 10 * "300 bananas"; // 3000 Makes total sense, doesn't it? And it could easily happen if you maintained a poorly written project with crap data stashed in the database. Even the most skilled PHP developer will have some head scratching moments when things appear to work but actually don't.