Ascending vs. descending

I have quite a bit of trouble remembering what’s ascending and what’s descending. My notes:

Ascending:

return l - r;

if l < r: return -1; …

oldest first

a first, z last

Descending:

return r - l;

if l < r: return 1; …

newest first

z first, a last

⁂

James Kerr has a way to remember. His mnemonic is “on a number line, negative numbers come first, so if l − r is negative, that means l comes first”.

James Kerr, “Finally Understanding How Array.sort(comparator) Works”

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