I definitely understand it. It's not a matter of understanding the syntax. It's a matter of teaching people most effectively. Here's a comparison of the spoken explanation of the code:
't' equals the value of 'array' at index 'm' minus 1 and 'm' equals itself minus 1.
vs
'm' equals itself minus 1.
't' equals the value of 'array' at index 'm'.
To me one of those seems more concise for writing production code, and the other more useful for teaching algorithms.
That explanation is not how someone who understands the syntax would read the statement. In general, when an expression contains one pre- (or post-) operator, the reader will take that action before (or after) the rest: "decrement then index" in both cases.
It sounds confusing that the pieces of such a statement are not executed in the order that they are written, but in reality it's not any more strange than the fact that "a = b;" reads "evaluate b and store in a".
The real problem happens when there are multiple operators like that in the same statement, or multiple appearances of a post/pre-inc/dec-remented variable and you need to parse operator precedence in order to figure out the order of execution. As usual, abusing the syntax leads to confusing code, but simple and straightforward cases like "a = b[--i];" are cleaner and easier to read for anyone competent enough to matter.
