The issue with the first fizzbuzz isn't just cylcling lists, it's also the use of zipWith. At least, that's what causes some of the brittleness in his examples

The issue with the first fizzbuzz isn't just cylcling lists, it's also the use of zipWith. At least, that's what causes some of the brittleness in his examples. --- Also, I think you're slightly wrong in that cycled lists and modulo are "just different abstractions" - they may be to a machine, but they are not to people. And in this case, critically, the original problem's phrasing is much closer to the modulo implementation than the cycled list equivalent: "...for multiples of three print Fizz...". By choosing to encode that constant 3, rather than represent it, you're being clever; by failing to use a straightforward analog of "is multiple of", you're being clever. This "encoding" has real risks - for instance, because you're human, you'd immediately notice that 5 is not 6. You don't need to think to do that; don't need to process equivalence or do any kind of algebraic reasoning; a kid can and will notice the identical shapes before they can talk or walk. It's built in. By contrast, even a trained professional might overlook a list with 5 spaces followed by Buzz as opposed to a list of 5 elements consisting of spaces followed by a single Buzz. Sure, it's a really stupid mistake, and one I hope you make very rarely - but people make stupid mistakes. No need to encourage that habit by making them think. So no, it's not that cycled lists are bad and module is good, it's that the problem description is closer to the definition of modulo than it is to list cycling. (This is my interpretation, the article's definition of clever is more about seems and changes and doesn't really touch this).