Using compound operators as well as increments and decrements (and toggling, in the case of ``++boolean++``s) on primitive fields are not atomic operations. That is, they don't happen in a single step. For instance, when a ``++volatile++`` primitive field is incremented or decremented you run the risk of data loss if threads interleave in the steps of the update. Instead, use a guaranteed-atomic class such as ``++AtomicInteger++``, or synchronize the access.