Why x++ was slower than ++x in the original C compiler maybe (and occasionally still when used inside another expression, but quite rarely these days on modern

Why x++ was slower than ++x in the original C compiler maybe (and occasionally still when used inside another expression, but quite rarely these days on modern architectures and optimizing compilers). Regardless, I much prefer to write ++x Because (a) I pronounce it “increase x” and I haven’t found a concise way to say “x’s current value but it is increased afterwards”. And (b) all other unary operators are prefix - easier to reason uniformly about things like order of evaluation. In some contexts postfix is simpler - e.g. a memcpy-like implementation while (n—-) *t++ = *s++; However, they are not very common in my experience.