The laziness and practicality of a programmer

Let's face it. Programmers are paid to type some magic into a screen that eventually becomes something that works. Since an entire work day mostly consists of reading and typing, it naturally follows that syntax must be shortened to increase productivity and readability... or for the sake of saving a few more keystrokes because typing is tiring.

This is why we have increment/decrement operators.

// Suppose we have a variable that stores a number
let someNum = 0;

// Practicality Level 1
someNum = someNum + 1;

// Practicality Level 2
someNum += 1;

// Practicality Level 9000+
someNum++;

// Wait... or should I use...?
++someNum;

Ah, now we have come face to face with the issue at hand: what is the difference between someNum++ and ++someNum?

Prefix vs. Postfix

• Prefix: ++someNum
• Postfix: someNum++

At first glance, it may seem like a syntactic preference; similar to that of generators, where you can define one by writing function* generator() {} or function *generator() {}. Contrary to intuition, there are subtle differences in how each works, specifically in what each returns.

DISCLAIMER: For the rest of the article, I shall only use increment operators for the sake of brevity. It should be implied from here on out that what is true for increment operators is also true for decrement operators.

Both operators still do what their syntax implies: to increment. Regardless of prefix or postfix, the variable is sure to be incremented by 1. The difference between the two lies in their return values.

• The prefix increment returns the value of a variable after it has been incremented.
• On the other hand, the more commonly used postfix increment returns the value of a variable before it has been incremented.

// Prefix increment
let prefix = 1;
console.log(++prefix); // 2
console.log(prefix); // 2

// Postfix increment
let postfix = 1;
console.log(postfix++); // 1
console.log(postfix); // 2

To remember this rule, I think about the syntax of the two. When one types in the prefix increment, one says ++x. The position of the ++ is important here. Saying ++x means to increment (++) first then return the value of x, thus we have ++x. The postfix increment works conversely. Saying x++ means to return the value of x first then increment (++) it after, thus x++.

When do I use one over the other?

It really depends on you, the programmer. At the end of the day, all we really want from the increment operator is to increment a variable by 1. If you are still concerned about their differences, there are some cases when one can be used over the other to write simpler code. For example, consider the following situation.

A button with an ID of counter counts how many times it has been pressed. It changes the innerHTML of a span with an ID of displayPressCount according to the number of times the button has been pressed. The common approach is to attach a click listener that increments some global variable.

// Global variable that counts how many times the button has been pressed
let numberOfPresses = 0;

// Stores necessary HTML elements
const button = document.getElementById('counter');
const span = document.getElementById('displayPressCount');

// Event handler
function clickHandler() {
  // Increment counter
  numberOfPresses++;
  span.innerHTML = numberOfPresses;
}

// Attach click listener to button
button.addEventListener('click', clickHandler);

Now, let's switch our focus to the clickHandler. Notice how the increment operator takes up a whole new line of code in the function? Recalling what the prefix increment returns can help us shorten the function.

// Event handler
function clickHandler() {
  // Increment counter
  span.innerHTML = ++numberOfPresses;
}

Voila! It has been shortened! If we want to go crazier, we can even use arrow functions. The entire script now looks like this.

// Global variable that counts how many times the button has been pressed
let numberOfPresses = 0;

// Stores necessary HTML elements
const button = document.getElementById('counter');
const span = document.getElementById('displayPressCount');

// Attach click listener to button
button.addEventListener('click',
  () => (span.innerHTML = ++numberOfPresses)
);

Things to Remember

The prefix and postfix increment both increase the value of a number by 1. The only difference between the two is their return value. The former increments (++) first, then returns the value of x, thus ++x. The latter returns the value of x first, then increments (++), thus x++.

Now go and spread your newfound knowledge to the world!