I was uneasy when the C<num_eq> and C<str_eq> vtable entries were first proposed. Sure, they get the job done for Perl 5, but Perl 6 is expanding its notion of context beyond those compiled in. You're supposed to be able to add, say, "nontransitive ring" context if you want.
Then your compiler is going to have to do an awful lot of work when emitting bytecode. This is an acceptable thing.
Separate and distinguishable string and numeric comparisons are deeply fundamental to almost every language I can think of, including perl 6. There will, occasionally, be cases where you need to use a generic equality and count on multimethod dispatch for proper handling, but that doesn't eliminate the need for string and numeric comparisons.
--
Dan
--------------------------------------"it's like this"-------------------
Dan Sugalski even samurai
[EMAIL PROTECTED] have teddy bears and even
teddy bears get drunk
