I sort of understand this casting or typing subject in ASP.NET, and C# specifically, but it's just weird, coming from a Visual FoxPro background. An example of this follows from Stephen Walther's book, titled "ASP.NET 3.5 Unleashed". The value that is found with the FindControl function is already coming from a textbox, and yet the value has to be Typed as a TextBox? Or, maybe it's not quite a TextBox, because the FindControl() function is only finding the txtSearch control on the PreviousPage, not really able to return it as a TextBox object? I suppose this is more C# language "stuff", not really confined to ASP.NET. As a VFP guy, it's a bit weird, although somewhat understandable with repetition and useage.

This code is found on page 99:

TextBox txtSearch = (TextBox)PreviousPage.FindControl("txtSearch");
lblSearch.Text = String.Format("Search For: {0}", txtSearch.Text);