Re: "5" 2 == "55" vs. 2 * "5" == Exception* You need to remember that EVERYTHING is an object, there are no basic/literal types at all; in this case, "5" is

Re: "5" 2 == "55" vs. 2 * "5" == Exception* You need to remember that EVERYTHING is an object, there are no basic/literal types at all; in this case, "5" is really just syntactic sugar for creating a "5" String object, 2 is syntactic sugar for creating the "2" Integer (Number?) object, and the " * " operator is syntactic sugar for the " * " method of the "5" String object == ' "5".times(2) ' (which is similar to Perl's ' "5" x 2 ' construct). The String class supports a " * " method which creates n copies of it's string value, and concat's them together into a new String object, but the Integer class does not. Many "basic" objects have explicit conversion methods, but will also frequently support implicit conversion where it makes sense.