An advantage of the increment operator is that it usually produces slightly more efficient machine language code because it's similiar to actual machine language instructions. However, as vendors produce better C compilers, this advantage may disappear. A smart compiler can recognize that x = x + 1 can be treated the same as ++x.
The return statement terminates the execution of a function.
A sequence point is a point in program execution at which all side effects are evaluated before going on to the next step. In C, the semicolon in a statement marks a sequence point.
