I've been thinking about it a bit more and I think I've gotten to the bottom of the point I'm trying to make. But again, it's very subtle and unimportant 99% of time but it's the way I tend to think about code

First example (C):

for(i=0; i<N ;i++) { t = data[i]; ... }

Second example (python):

for t in data: ...

The difference is that in the second example I'm telling the compiler what I want to *have*. It will give me exactly that ('t' will contain consecutive values from 'data') and it will do it's best automagically. In the first example however, I'm telling the compiler what to *do* and it will just and only follow orders (iterate 'i', copy the value from data+i to 't').

Insignificant difference most of the time but an important one to me. And sugar makes it more complicated to distinguish what I told the compiler to do vs. what I wanted to have. Helps me with debugging and getting cycle count under control