Theory of Pure C, chapter 937

[utzoo!decvax!genradbo!mitccc!zrm]

The pre/post increment/decrement operators of C were intended to reflect
the ability of the PDP11 to perform these operations in hardware. The
contexts in which this construct was intended to be used are array
subscripting, and, since C has pointer arithmetic, pointer
increment/decrement. Outside of obviously readable and semantically
clear cases and the above contexts, one should steer clear of these
operators. 

In fact, C is equipped with the += -= *= /= operators to make such
things as increment/decrement both clear and easy to type. (Are you a
touch typist or a void typist?)

Cheers,
Zig