It is the sign, rather than the magnitude of the value returned from ``++compareTo++`` that matters. Returning ``++Integer.MIN_VALUE++`` does _not_ convey a higher degree of inequality, and doing so can cause errors because the return value of ``++compareTo++`` is sometimes inversed, with the expectation that negative values become positive. However, inversing ``++Integer.MIN_VALUE++`` yields ``++Integer.MIN_VALUE++`` rather than ``++Integer.MAX_VALUE++``.
