But the destructive nature of ++wptr or whatever can be to its advantage, in that you never need to update any numbers when things change. The data is consumed/

But the destructive nature of ++wptr or whatever can be to its advantage, in that you never need to update any numbers when things change. The data is consumed/produced in the order specified, a property that is maintained even after new operations are inserted or existing operations are reordered. (Whether you want this or not, who can say! - though I claim you typically do.)