When I worked at Google, they had their own string type in place of std::string for various reasons.

Python has byte strings, Unicode strings, format strings, regular expression strings, and probably a few others!

Rust has str and String, depending on ownership.

In some languages it's two or more of the fundamental types. Obviously you haven't been using the big brained languages like Rust, Haskell, or Elixir.

(Also a bad joke.)

Obviously you haven't seen the Substring [1] type of Swift.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/substring

there's String, string, std::string, and the satanic *char. Just like there's Slinky, Super Slinky, Extra Slinky, Heavy, and Pro. Nickel-wound (ref counted), steel wound (raw array), and classical nylon (a fucking pointer).

Meh, "text" is where it's at. "varchar()" is so Oracle. :p