I see a lot of c++ code that looks like this: for( const_iterator it = list.begin(), const_iterator ite = list.end(); it != ite; ++it) As opposed to the more concise version: for( const_iterator it = list.begin(); it != list.end(); ++it) Will there be any difference in speed between these two conventions? Naively the first will be slightly faster since list.end() is only called once. But since the iterator is const, it seems like the compiler will pull this test out of the loop, generating equivalent assembly for both.