How to avoid "assignment instead of comparison "

Almost every beginning C programmer independently rediscovers

the mistake of writing:

if (i=3)

instead of:

if (i==3)

Once experienced, this painful error (doing an assignment where comparison was intended) is rarely

repeated. Some programmers have developed the habit of writing the literal first, like this:

 if (3==i)

Then, if an equal sign is accidentally left out, the compiler will complain about an

"attempted assignment to literal." This won't protect you when comparing two variables, but every

little bit helps.