in reply to just how special are $a and $b these days?

c:\test>perl -l
package distant;
    sub comp{ $::a <=> $::b || $::b cmp $::a };
package main;
    print for sort distant::comp qw[ 3 3.0 3e0 2 2.0 2e0 1 1.0 1e0 ]
^Z
1e0
1.0
1
2e0
2.0
2
3e0
3.0
3

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