These are two entirely different a's you're storing reference to it in the same variable. You can do the same in rust (we agree it statically and strongly typed

These are two entirely different a's you're storing reference to it in the same variable. You can do the same in rust (we agree it statically and strongly typed, right?): let a = 1; let a = '1'; Strongly typing means I can do 1 + '1' variable names and types has nothing to do with it being strongly typed.