Bead sort

# routine cribbed from List::Utils;
sub transpose(@list is copy) {
    gather {
        while @list {
            my @heads;
            if @list[0] !~~ Positional { @heads = @list.shift; }
            else { @heads = @list.map({$_.shift unless $_ ~~ []}); }
            @list = @list.map({$_ unless $_ ~~ []});
            take [@heads];
        }
    }
}

sub beadsort(@l) {
    (transpose(transpose(map {[1 xx $_]}, @l))).map(*.elems);
}

my @list = 2,1,3,5;
say beadsort(@list).perl;

Output:

(5, 3, 2, 1)

Here we simulate the dropping beads by using the push method.

sub beadsort(*@list) {
    my @rods;
    for words ^«@list -> $x { @rods[$x].push(1) }
    gather for ^@rods[0] -> $y {
        take [+] @rods.map: { .[$y] // last }
    }
}

say beadsort 2,1,3,5;

The ^ is the "upto" operator that gives a range of 0 up to (but not including) its endpoint. We use it as a hyperoperator (^«) to generate all the ranges of rod numbers we should drop a bead on, with the result that $x tells us which rod to drop each bead on. Then we use ^ again on the first rod to see how deep the beads are stacked, since they are guaranteed to be the deepest there. The [+] adds up all the beads that are found at level $y. The last short circuits the map so we don't have to look for all the missing beads at a given level, since the missing beads are all guaranteed to come after the existing beads at that level (because we always dropped left to right starting at rod 0).