It seems that x.CompareTo(y) returns -1, 0, or 1 when x and y are int, long,
uint, float, double, string, or DateTime types, depending on whether x is
less than, equal to, or greater than y. But when x and y are sbyte, short,
byte, or ushort types, the return value is y-x expressed as a signed integer.

Although this behavior conforms to the definition Of IComparable, it seems
inconsistent. Is there a reason for this?

The code I used to test this is like the following:

short short1 = 5;
short short2 = 10;
Console.WriteLine ("For short, {0} compared to {1} is {2}.", short1, short2,
short1.CompareTo(short2));
           
int int1 = 5;
int int2 = 10;
Console.WriteLine ("For int, {0} compared to {1} is {2}.", int1, int2,
int1.CompareTo(int2));