The two sides of the incremental operator in JavaScript ++

I learned this last week, possibly highlighting my non-classical programming training. I have never come across this in all my years of JavaScript and apparently it is pervasive in other languages such as Java as well.

Incremental Operator ++

Many times I have seen or used the following method for incrementing an integer count

var marky = 0;
console.log(++marky);
console.log(marky);

This increments the integer marky by 1. not rocket science. In the image below you can see that the two console.log entries always return the same value

What I learned yesterday was using the ++ after the variable name also increases the variable – but only AFTER the value has been evaluated…

From this image you can see that the marky++ value and the marky value are not the same. The console.log(marky++); returns the existing marky value and then increments it.

var marky = 0;
console.log(marky++);
console.log(marky);

I have to ask myself “why would anyone do that?”. Why would I want to return a variable value and THEN increase it’s value, seems a little odd to me. I guess someone thought it was a good idea…..

Always makes me think “I wonder what else I don’t know? Probably best not think about that too much”….

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Guide/Expressions_and_Operators