I have a few things I'd like to see in perl 6 (or 7). (They may already be in development, I don't read as much apocolyptic literature as I probably should.)

Consider this code: 

my $highest = 0;
my $lowest = 1_000_000_000;
foreach (@list_of_int) {
   $highest = $_ if $_ > $highest;
   $lowest = $_ if $_ < $lowest; # was $highest - see update
}

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Now I'd like to get rid of the '= $_ if $_ >' as it's annoyingly long winded. In the spirit of ||= ('or equals'), let me suggest =>> become 'equals the greater' and =<< become 'equals the lesser'. So now we have: 
my $highest = 0;
my $lowest; # undef
foreach (@list_of_int) {
   $highest =>> $_;
   $lowest =<< $_;
}

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(I'd use '=>' but that would be confusing to perl5ers.)

There'd also be string equivelents: 

my $highest = '';
my $lowest; # undef
foreach (@list_of_string) {
   $highest eg $_;
   $lowest el $_;
}

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Note that my =<< and el operators would consider anything defined to be less than 'undef' which is why the my declarations for $lowest are undef. This means we don't have to guess a value that is higher than the lowest value when initialising.

Thoughts? Comments? Ridicule?

Update: Fixed typo pointed out by NetWallah. Added a pile of semi-colons.

"Get real! This is a discussion group, not a helpdesk. You post something, we discuss its implications. If the discussion happens to answer a question you've asked, that's incidental." -- nobull@mail.com in clpm

In reply to Thoughts on some new operators for perl (6 or 7) by BigLug

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