It is *required* in some cases. For example, if you build a COM-DLL to interface with Crystal Reports and you don't specify the datatype of method parameters, Crystal won't see the method at all.

And I believe Ken Levy was the marketing dweeb at the time the feature was added.

>For some reason I thought it was in VFP9. Maybe that was the first time I noticed it was available.
>
>Seems like this was named by a marketing dweeb since it really isn't strong typing at all.
>
>Oh well.