x, xx, and negative counts

 My expectation before reading the delta was that negative counts
would do a reversal:

"123" x -1 = "321"

('a', 'b', 'c') xx -3 = ('c', 'b', 'a', 'c', 'b', 'a', 'c', 'b', 'a');

I don't know why I think that makes sense, but it was honestly my
first thought.  Does it make sense to anyone else?  Is there a
compelling reason I'm missing for having negative values behave as if
they were zero rather than adding some other potentially useful
functionality?

-- 
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@mail.com>

• x, xx, and negative counts by Mark J. Reed
• Re: x, xx, and negative counts by Chas Owens
• Re: x, xx, and negative counts by Larry Wall
• Re: x, xx, and negative counts by Mark J. Reed
• Re: x, xx, and negative counts by Andy Armstrong