You need a 'min_str', min_str_i' and 'min_num' to really cover all bases.

You can get most of the way there with multimethods. Which, fortunately, Perl 6 has:

multi max (Str *@candidates) { 
    reduce {$^a gt $^b ?? $^a :: $^b} @candidates;
}

multi max (Num *@candidates) { 
    reduce {$^a > $^b ?? $^a :: $^b} @candidates;
}
[download]

However, I suspect that won't be sufficiently Lazy for Perl 6. So my preference is for a max function that selects what kind of comparison to do, based on call context:

sub max (*@args) { 
    if want~~Str { reduce {$^a gt $^b ?? $^a :: $^b} @args }
    else         { reduce {$^a > $^b ?? $^a :: $^b} @args }
}

$biggest_str = ~max @values;  # Str context, so use gt
$biggest_num = +max @values;  # Num context, so use >
$biggest_num =  max @values;  # scalar context, default to >
[download]

And to get all the way there (i.e. to allow for user-specified comparisons such as case-insensitive), max would have an optional closure argument (just as sort does now) so that the comparator could be explicitly specified:

# Let call context decide...
multi max (*@args) { 
    if want~~Str { reduce {$^a gt $^b ?? $^a :: $^b} @args }
    else         { reduce {$^a > $^b ?? $^a :: $^b} @args }
}

# Let the user specify...
multi max (&compare, *@args) {
    reduce {compare($^a,$^b)>=0 ?? $^a :: $^b} @args;
}

$biggest_str    = ~max @values;
$biggest_num    = +max @values;
$biggest_num    =  max @values;        
$biggest_mag    =  max {abs $^a <=> abs $^b}  @values;
$biggest_lookup =  max {%hash{$^a} cmp %hash{$^b}  @values;
[download]

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