Before we can discuss polymorphism in detail, we must first understand the concept of types. In computer science, a type is a way of categorizing a variable by its storage strategy, i.e., how it is represented in the computer’s memory.

You’ve already used types extensively in your programming up to this point. Consider the declaration:

int number = 5;

The variable number is declared to have the type int. This lets the .NET interpreter know that the value of number will be stored using a specific scheme. This scheme will use 32 bits and contain the number in Two’s complement binary form. This form, and the number of bytes, allows us to represent numbers in the range -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. If we need to store larger values, we might instead use a long which uses 64 bits of storage. Or, if we only need positive numbers, we might instead use a uint, which uses 32 bits and stores the number in regular base 2 (binary) form.

This is why languages like C# provide multiple integral and float types. Each provides a different representation, representing a tradeoff between memory required to store the variable and the range or precision that variable can represent.

In addition to integral and float types, most programming languages include types for booleans, characters, arrays, and often strings. C# is no exception - you can read about its built-in value types in the documentation.

User-Defined Types

In addition to built-in types, most programming languages support user-defined types, that is, new types defined by the programmer. For example, if we were to define a C# enum:

public enum Grade {
  A,
  B,
  C,
  D,
  F
}

Defines the type Grade. We can then create variables with that type:

Grade courseGrade = Grade.A;

Similarly, structs provide a way of creating user-defined compound data types.

Classes are Types

In an object-oriented programming language, a Class also defines a new type. As we discussed in the previous chapter, the Class defines the structure for the state (what is represented) and memory (how it is represented) for objects implementing that type. Consider the C# class Student:

public class Student {
  // backing variables
  private float creditPoints = 0;
  private uint creditHours = 0;

  /// <summary>
  /// Gets and sets first name.
  /// </summary>
  public string First { get; set; }

  /// <summary>
  /// Gets and sets last name.
  /// </summary>
  public string Last { get; set; }

  /// <summary>
  /// Gets the student's GPA
  /// </summary>
  public float GPA {
    get {
      return creditPoints / creditHours;
    }
  }

  /// <summary>
  /// Adds a final grade for a course to the
  // student's GPA.
  /// </summary>
  /// <param name="grade">The student's final letter grade in the course</param>
  /// <param name="hours">The course's credit hours</param>
  public void AddCourseGrade(Grade grade, uint hours) {
    this.creditHours += hours;
    switch(grade) {
      case Grade.A:
        this.creditPoints += 4.0 * hours;
        break;
      case Grade.B:
        this.creditPoints += 3.0 * hours;
        break;
      case Grade.C:
        this.creditPoints += 2.0 * hours;
        break;
      case Grade.D:
        this.creditPoints += 1.0 * hours;
        break;
      case Grade.F:
        this.creditPoints += 0.0 * hours;
        break;
    }
  }
}

If we want to create a new student, we would create an instance of the class Student which is an object of type Student:

Student willie = new Student("Willie", "Wildcat");

Hence, the type of an object is the class it is an instance of. This is a staple across all object-oriented languages.

Static vs. Dynamic Typed Languages

A final note on types. You may hear languages being referred to as statically or dynamically typed. A statically typed language is one where the type is set by the code itself, either explicitly:

int foo = 5;

or implicitly (where the compiler determines the type based on the assigned value):

var bar = 6;

In a statically typed language, a variable cannot be assigned a value of a different type, i.e.:

foo = 8.3;

Will fail with an error, as a float is a different type than an int. Similarly, because bar has an implied type of int, this code will fail:

bar = 4.3;

However, we can cast the value to a new type (changing how it is represented), i.e.:

foo = (int)8.9;

For this to work, the language must know how to perform the cast. The cast may also lose some information - in the above example, the resulting value of foo is 8 (the fractional part is discarded).

In contrast, in a dynamically typed language the type of the variable changes when a value of a different type is assigned to it. For example, in JavaScript, this expression is legal:

var a = 5;
a = "foo";

and the type of a changes from int (at the first assignment) to string (at the second assignment).

C#, Java, C, C++, and Kotlin are all statically typed languages, while Python, JavaScript, and Ruby are dynamically typed languages.