We are pretty sure what the literals mean. On the other hand we have many string channels: get/post/cookie/persistent storage¹/… Given that environment its probably natural that you try to convert a string into its "intended" type.
¹no DB, but the "just write your visitor counter into a plain text file" back then
News to me. You have to enter a really high-precision number as a string in Java so it won't be rounded off to fit within a double. This is an unsolved problem.
¹no DB, but the "just write your visitor counter into a plain text file" back then