&gt; Because sigils tell you things. What if &#x27;x&#x27; in your example is a list? Are you now checking the length of the list rather than the value? Sounds like room for a security bug to me.<p>Only if your language is really awful. A good language shouldn&#x27;t even let you run &quot;5 &lt; x&quot; when x is a list, but even a mediocre one would surely at least make that error out at runtime rather than giving a nonsense answer.