What I meant was that the result of the .. terms are compared to $. if the terms are numeric. For example:

  while (<>)
  {
    if (1 .. 10)
    {
    }
  }
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$. doesn't go anywhere if you are not using <>, it just doesn't get reset and incremented. Furthermore, incrementing it yourself is probably not a good idea. Who knows what other (called) code might use it.