I'm not sure what you mean. You don't have to deal with index variables in a for loop:

    for item in iterator {
        vector.push_back(foo(item));
    }

You're not explicitly indexing the source iterator or the destination vector at any point.

Agreed. That's why I enjoy iterators, and use them whenever possible. I think they're important.

But earlier you claimed the for-loop version required index variables and indexing into iterators/vectors/etc ... ?

I clearly said the opposite, in response to, what appeared to be, your suggestion that indexing isn't so bad:

"I think people make too big a deal about iterators. The simple for loops that they’re fit to replace aren’t that hard to read or write, so they aren’t causing real problem"

It seems like you imply that iterators = range-for and "simple loops" = indexing, which is clearly not what the previous poster has in mind (which was "range-for = imperative loops, iterators = functional style, simple loops = trivial loop body").

Yes, I was responding to:

> I disagree. If I can avoid an index variable, I’m going to have less bugs since I won’t have to index

Which (given thread context) sounds pretty clearly like he's advocating against `for item in iterator {...}` and in favor of iterator chains. If there's another way of reading that comment, I'm not seeing it. :)

> If I can avoid an index variable, I’m going to have less bugs since I won’t have to index.

Not only that. In safe Rust vector indexes are always bound-checked that slows execution a little bit. Iterators over a vector, on the other hand, do not suffer from bound-check overhead.