use List::Util qw(max);

sub assignmax {
    (sort { $b<=>$a } @_)[0];
}
sub assignmax5 {
    (sort @_)[-1];
}

sub assignmax2 {
    $_[0] > $_[1] ? $_[0] : $_[1];
}

sub assignmax3 {
    max(@_);
}

sub assignmax4 {
    my $a;

    for (@_) {
        $a = $_ if $_ > $a;
    }
    $a;
}

@r = map {int rand 1000}(0..1);


use Benchmark qw(cmpthese);
cmpthese -1,{
    'sort' => sub {assignmax(@r)},
    'sort2' => sub {assignmax5(@r)},
    'ternary' => sub {assignmax2(@r)},
    'List' => sub {assignmax3(@r)},
    'loop' => sub {assignmax4(@r)},
};

##</code><code>##

            Rate    loop   sort2    sort    List ternary
loop    105412/s      --    -27%    -27%    -61%    -72%
sort2   143479/s     36%      --     -1%    -47%    -62%
sort    144807/s     37%      1%      --    -46%    -62%
List    270490/s    157%     89%     87%      --    -29%
ternary 381869/s    262%    166%    164%     41%      --