[syn_rst]

Depending on what syntax constructs are available, it's possible to achieve clarity without the verbosity or "line noise factor." For example, in Rust you could write that same code as:

  match a.cmp(&b) {
      Ordering::Equal => 0,
      Ordering::Greater => 1,
      Ordering::Less => -1
  }

It's easy to see what the possible outputs are and what is produced in each case. The compiler even checks it to make sure you didn't forget any situations.

The clarity comes at the cost of some verbosity, but there's only 4 lines of functional code (not counting the closing brace) here compared to the article's 10. You'd get around the same number if you added line breaks to make the ternary example more readable.