Technical Term: Zero-Cost

Danger Close: Why Types Matter

A startup’s gene analysis samples nearly melted because someone confused Fahrenheit and Celsius in their monitoring system. A Mars orbiter was lost because of mixed metric and imperial units. Medication dosing errors have killed patients due to milligrams versus micrograms confusion. These aren’t edge cases - they’re symptoms of a fundamental problem in how we build mission-critical systems: Most languages approach types as an afterthought rather than a first line of defense.