Linus Torvalds explains "taste" in code by showing how to remove an entry from a singly linked list in C without adding extra complexity. Source: TED

Source:

Oh man, seeing how elegantly a simple linked list can be optimized really blew my mind! Beautiful! Linus really is the goat!

"Better taste" would not work if entry is a value, not a list element that needs to be deleted. Last string needs indirect->next

I'd argue the first one is better *because* it's more intuitive and understandable (biased as a compiler developer). In reality, the compiler has no trouble optimizing this trivial logic: and actually yields better code in the "untasteful" one (1/3)

Looking at the problem from a different perspective is extremely hard when you are in the problem. 😫

had to do some soul searching

That while loop tastes pretty sour.

But it doesn't really handle the case where you reach the end of the list without finding the element you're looking for. If you reach the end it will crash and probably segfault.

“code taste”

This is the kind of thing that make having pointers in your language worth it.