title: Head node in linked lists
body: <p>I have problems with understanding what is the nature of the first node, or the so called head, in a linked list data structure. A linked list consists of nodes, and each node contains some data and a link to another node in the list. But is the very first node a node which contains data and a link to the second node? Or is it contain only a link (and no data) to a node? I thought that the very first node in a linked list has both data and a link to another node, but in one introductory book it is explained that the head is a node but a link that gets you to the first node. At the same time head is a variable of the type of the node. Why is it like this? (I am working in Java, if that matters). Thanks you. </p>