Increment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An increment is an increase, either of some fixed amount, for example added regularly, or of a variable amount. For example, a salary may receive an annual increment. A decrease would rather be called a decrement.
Incremental may also refer to gradual change as opposed to massive, instant change.
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[edit] Use in science and technology
Incremental changes are gradual improvements as opposed to revolutionary, paradigm-breaking changes - i.e. whereas the invention of inner tube tires was only an incremental change to wheels, the invention of the combustion engine was a revolutionary change over animal-drawn vehicles.
[edit] Use in programming languages
This type of incrementation is of constant use in computer programming.
For example, in JavaScript, the increment operator works like the following:
x++
Where the decrement operator is:
x--
In addition, the increment operator can be written both as x++ and ++x, with separate meanings. For example:
var y = ++x
is shorthand for:
x = x+1 var y = x
however,
var y = x++
is shorthand for:
var y = x x = x+1
--x instead of x-- follows similar behaviour.
[edit] Use in naming convention
C++ is named C++, not C+, because of this incrementation operation as a joke to computer programmers.
Similarly Notepad++ has been named in this way to identify itself as a level of improvement on the original Microsoft version of Notepad
