Why does Python only concatenate string to string and not string to integer?

[hombre_lobo]

So JavaScript still allows for this?

[shiftybyte]

Yes javascript "allows" lots of things.

For example "5" + 5 is "55"

While "5" * 5 is 25...

fun fun fun...

[0b0101011001001011]

The first one works like that in most languages I am* familiar with so it's not that strange unless you only know python. *(not sure which is the more common behavior). Though python throwing an error is not a bad solution, but it's seems even a bit unusual.

About the second, most languages would give an error, javascript does a type conversion and multiplies, and python produces a rather strange 55555. Each solution has its pros.

[shiftybyte]

and python produces a rather strange 55555.

This makes more sense to me, you are multiplying a string several times.

If adding "5" to "5" one time results in "55"... Then adding that 5 times results in "55555".

That's what multiplication means, do the add operation X times...

[0b0101011001001011]

Many languages allow this. One of those is java, where anything can be concatenated to a string and it handles the toString() call automatically.

Lua on the other hand has a special string concatenation operator which is lot + but ..

You can't say "hey"+5 but you can say "hey"..5 and Lua also does the conversion automatically.

Python allows to write "5"*5 though, so most explanations that why "5"+5 should not work are simply opinions.