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This is not exactly a technical question, since I know C kind of enough to do the things I need to (I mean, in terms of not 'letting the language get in your way'), so this question is basically a 'what direction to take' question. Situation is: I am currently taking an advanced algorithms course, and for the sake of 'growing up as programmers', I am required to use pure C to implement the practical assignments (it works well: pretty much any small mistake you make actually forces you to understand completely what you're doing in order to fix it). In the course of implementing, I obviously run into the problem of having to implement the 'basic' data structures from the ground up: actually not only linked lists, but also stacks, trees, et cetera. I am focusing on lists in this topic because it's typically a structure I end up using a lot in the program, either as a 'main' structure or as a 'helper' structure for other bigger ones (for example, a hash tree that resolves conflicts by using a linked list). This requires that the list stores elements of lots of different types. I am assuming here as a premise that I don't want to re-code the list for every type. So, I can come up with these alternatives: Making a list of void pointers (kinda inelegant; harder to debug) Making only one list, but having a union as 'element type', containing all element types I will use in the program (easier to debug; wastes space if elements are not all the same size) Using a preprocessor macro to regenerate the code for every type, in the style of SGLIB , 'imitating' C++'s STL (creative solution; doesn't waste space; elements have the explicit type they actually are when they are returned; any change in list code can be really dramatic ) Your idea/solution To make the question clear: which one of th

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