While I don't have time to fully explain it, you can actually use prototypes(bleck) to avoid the weirdness in $a and $b (ughhh) for 5.6 and above.... 
sub boo ($$) {
  my ($a,$b) = @_;
  $a <=> $b
}

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-Blake

In reply to Re2: Mistaken notions of $a/$b strict by blakem
in thread use strict won't require explicit name for all variables? by Biker

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