Pattern matching is a big thing in programming. Not in C++, as ++i executes arbitrary code found an unbounded distance from the programmer (so ++i vs i++ might

Pattern matching is a big thing in programming. Not in C++, as ++i executes arbitrary code found an unbounded distance from the programmer (so ++i vs i++ might be a very important distinction) but in other languages it helps a lot. for (int i=0, j=0; i < N && j < M; i+=2, j++) i++ looks like i+=1 so fits better in loops iterating over multiple things. Also that int says "these values don't overflow" very concisely and the more modern cleverer C++ using iterator facades probably fails to communicate that idea to anyone. edit: amused to note on checking for typos that I wrote that with < instead of != which violates your other recommendation, which is one I'm in favour of in theory but apparently don't write out by default.