I would expect to see barely any comments in the "in production" version, other than a comment like: // indirect is either &head or &(node->next), so *indi

I would expect to see barely any comments in the "in production" version, other than a comment like: // indirect is either &head or &(node->next), so *indirect is equivalent to "next node" Someone who knows their C should be able to figure it out in a few minutes by just reading the code.