On: Linus Torvalds' good taste argument for linked lists, explained

[souprock]

Then there was the day I wrote a function that started off like this:

    char *fn(char **foo, char ***bar){
        char *baz = *++*foo ? *foo : *++*bar;

Double-pointers are just normal. The strtol function has one.

[jariel → souprock]

While that function may have utility in some context, I would immediately assume that there's something existentially wrong with the context in which such a function was needed.

Ok, it's possible the entirety of it makes sense, but given that C/C++ is full of absurd shenanigans, I think odds are something is wrong with a system that needs that kind of function in the first place.

That such things are common enough doesn't make them a good practice.