The Perl thinking is that a number is what looks like a number to a human being.

No, the Perl thinking is that if something is used a number, it is a number. When you call $a + $b (and they are not objects that overload +) then they are used as numbers, independently of what they look like. If there is no number representation, a default (0) is used, and optionally a warning emitted.

In reply to Re: Revealing difference in interpretation of 'number' between Perl and $other_language by moritz
in thread Revealing difference in interpretation of 'number' between Perl and $other_language by vrk

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