Scripsit ille aut illa Rando Christensen <rando / babblica.net>:
> Tue, 26 Nov 2002 06:30:36 +0900: Daniel Carrera (Daniel Carrera
> <dcarrera / math.umd.edu>):
> 
> > > 9. Ruby has no pre/post increment/decrement operator. For instance,
> > > x++ or x-- will fail to parse.
> > 
> > Why is that?  x++ and x-- are very convenient.  I sort of understand
> > why++x and --x don't exist.  But why can't numbers have a "++" and
> > "--" method?
> 
> I don't see it as that big of a deal. "very convenient"? How
> about "marginally convenient"? Really, how much more convenient is this:
> 
> x++
> 
> over this?
> 
> x += 1
> 
> By my count, it's two spaces, a shift key, and an extra character.

100%.

In C++, for example, I mostly prefer

  ++i

over

  i++

because i++ works slightly differently (it saves the value of i,
increases i by one and returns the saved value). Whenever I write "i++",
I use the feature that i is "first returned, then incremented". Example:

  a[i++] = 'h';
  a[i++] = 'e';
  a[i++] = 'l';
  a[i++] = 'l';
  a[i++] = 'o';

++i and i+=1 are semantically the same, but i++ and i+=1 aren't. i++ is
roughly equivalent to (i+=1)-1.

But as already written: the worst thing is that "++x" doesn't cause an
error, only a warning.


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