Why avoid increment (“++”) and decrement (“--”) operators in JavaScript?

Question

One of the tips for jslint tool is:

++ and --
The ++ (increment) and -- (decrement) operators have been known to contribute

Answer 1

The most important rationale for avoiding ++ or -- is that the operators return values and cause side effects at the same time, making it harder to reason about the code.

For efficiency's sake, I prefer:

• ++i when not using the return value (no temporary)
• i++ when using the return value (no pipeline stall)

I am a fan of Mr. Crockford, but in this case I have to disagree. ++i is 25% less text to parse than i+=1 and arguably clearer.