Thanks Rambutan for still providing golden nuggets of knowledge 6 years later! I'm new too and while I did solve the problem this is a great explaination/break down on incrementing and loops.

so simple

thanks! We all start off at the beginning!

Thank you so much, this is an amazing answer! I was forgetting to make it "i += 1" rather that "i + 1" because, as I said, I'm very inexperienced.

var i = 1
i + 1 = 2

the value of i is not changed by this.

the for loop has the following structure

initial state(i = 1)
while condition ( i is less than or equal to n)
increment value (how much i will increase each loop

i + 1 does not provide a consistent increase. it is an expression that evaluates to the number 2

the correct why to express this is:

i = i + 1

that is take the current value of i (whatever it currently it is) and add 1 to it
then assign this new value to i

so if var i = 1
i = i + 1 // i is now 2
i = i + 1 // i is now 3

if you write :

for (var i = 1; i <= n; i = i + 1)

the loop will work correctly

BUT a shorthand for writing i = i + 1 is:

i += 1

so this also works

for (var i =1; i <= n; i += 1)

and there is a further shorthand for i += 1

and that is :

i++

finally you have the commonest for loop:

for (var i = 1; i <= n; i++)

actually, it's not quite the commonest. that would be:

for (var i = 0; i < n; i++)

but i + 1 as an incrementer doesn't work