IIRC, the original reason for $a and $b is that they were much faster then using @_.

I thought the original reason was that sort with a block was in perl4 and there were no subroutines at that time, but I might be wrong.

In reply to Re^2: Why do we need $a and $b to be special? by ambrus
in thread Why do we need $a and $b to be special? by rinceWind

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