Latent typing

Okay kiddo, let's talk about something called "latent typing." Have you ever played with different types of building blocks before, like Legos or Lincoln Logs? Well, imagine that each block has a different label on it, like "square," "rectangle," or "triangle." That's called explicit typing, because you can see exactly what type of block it is.

But sometimes, you might not know exactly what type of block you have. Maybe it's a weird shape, or maybe someone took the label off. That's where latent typing comes in. Instead of looking at the label on the block, we look at what the block can actually do - can it stack on top of another block? Can it connect to the side of another block? Based on what it can do, we can make an educated guess about what type of block it is.

In computer programming, we use this idea of latent typing to figure out what kind of data we're working with, even if we don't know its exact type. When we write code, we can say things like "if this variable can be added to another variable, then it must be a number." That's latent typing in action!

So in summary, latent typing is like figuring out what kind of block you have based on what it can do, rather than just looking at a label. It's a way for computer programs to work with data even if they don't know exactly what type it is.