To be honest, I don't really know. I've always done it that way.

One possible reason is probably because that's the way Lippman and Lajoie tend to do it, and that's where I first learned programming.

A second possible reason is that, because of the way x++ will first return x and then increment it, it makes for cleaner produced assembly instructions in those instances where you just want to increment something and are not interested in utilizing the postfix version's side effects. This is pretty much irrelevant with modern compilers, though, as they'll do all that jive for you, anyway.

A third reason is related to the second and goes back a few years, when I was working on some very strange hardware. For one section we were interested in raw speed, and it transpired that using prefix operators and negatively incrementing the index made a small but significant difference to the speed. This was probably due to the idiosyncratic compiler we had to use, though. It was one of my first major jobs and possibly brainwashed me to some extent.

A fourth reason is also tied into the second, which is that (especially in languages like C/C++ when you're doing pointer or iterator arithmetic) it makes it clear in one glance at the code whether you're only interested in incrementing something or whether you're using the operator's side effects / precedence to do additional (dereferencing?) trickery etc.

Ultimately, there really isn't a very good reason, and this guff here is all just personal choice hogwash. It's something that seemed to make a smidgen of sense in certain circumstances in the C/C++ world, and I've just carried it over into other languages. I've heard good counter-arguments in that, seeing as you're probably going to hold down shift anyway to do the +'s, you may as well use the postfix version so you can hit the closing parenthesis at the same time in a for loop declaration. Vive la difference. :)

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If you discover Teh Secrit Of Coriander Growinng!!!11 in future, do let me know.

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Saag Alloo, spicy green beans and some turnip and courgette stuff that I made up when I found I'd run out of turmeric and tomatoes. I used one shop bought onion to use it up and because mine aren't quite ready yet, otherwise everything except the dry spices was home grown.

And I've got a big bowl of blackberries for pudding, and if I can get off the sofa I might see if the wine from last years grape harvest is drinkable yet.

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