Latimer is a statically typed language, meaning all expressions and statements are checked for type correctness before being interpreted. This helps catch errors early, enforce clarity, and improve runtime reliability.
Primitive Types
Latimer provides the following built-in types:
int: a 64-bit signed integerdouble: a 64-bit double-precision floating-point number (IEEE 754)char: a single characterstring: a sequence of charactersbool: a boolean value (trueorfalse)
Each of these types has a strict and non-overlapping definition. There is no implicit type coercion between these types.
Type Annotations
Variables and functions must be declared with explicit type annotations.
int age = 30;
string name = "Latimer";
int add[](int a, int b) {
return a + b;
}
Latimer currently does not support type inference—types must always be provided to avoid ambiguity and ensure full static checking.
Type Checking
All assignments and function calls are type-checked at compile time. A value of one type cannot be assigned to a variable of a different type, and a function must be called with arguments matching its signature.
int x = 10;
x = "hello"; // Error: cannot assign string to int
There are no implicit casts between types. If conversions are to be supported in future versions, they will require explicit functions.
Type Equality
Types are nominal in Latimer, meaning two types are equal if and only if they are explicitly declared to be the same. This applies to both primitive and function types.
Nullability
Latimer has a built-in null value. Any variable may be assigned null, regardless of its type. Conceptually, null is treated as a universal subtype, meaning it is allowed wherever a value of any type is expected.