$ perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my @blanks = ("","");
{ no warnings; $blanks[0]+0 }
my @stable = sort { $b cmp $a } @blanks;
my @reversed = reverse sort @blanks;
warn '$stable[0]'."\n";
1 if $stable[0]+0;
warn '$stable[1]'."\n";
1 if $stable[1]+0;
warn '$reversed[0]'."\n";
1 if $reversed[0]+0;
warn '$reversed[1]'."\n";
1 if $reversed[1]+0;
__END__
$stable[0]
$stable[1]
Argument "" isn't numeric in addition (+) at - line 10.
$reversed[0]
Argument "" isn't numeric in addition (+) at - line 12.
$reversed[1]