Why does he write such code?

Hello all,=20

I read linux-2.4 and found a line of confused code:

In kernel/sched.c:
=20
void do_timer(struct pt_regs * regs)
{
¡¡¡¡ (*(unsigned long *)&jiffies)++; /* confused code */
¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡­
}

1. Why not to use something link atomic_inc insead of the above code?
2. Can the GCC optimize the above code to jiffies++ ?

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