The & isn't needed if you're returning a pointer and no longer need a pointer to pointer to return the list as an argument. Also, if you get rid of the struct c

The & isn't needed if you're returning a pointer and no longer need a pointer to pointer to return the list as an argument. Also, if you get rid of the struct containing a single pointer and just use pointers, you can have the following instead… ` p=p->next As for the API, returning the pointer allows a function to be an argument for another function, which I find more flexible. ` p= remove(p,find(p,value))// I also like the option to be able to do stuff like: ` p=remove(remove(p,t),t); //remove two or: ` if (!remove(p,t)) {//that was my last node } But that may be an artifact of my preference for functional programming.