> I think the part where they're trying to abstract out a `content` method could be made to work by adding braces, so that the `&self` borrow goes away earlier

> I think the part where they're trying to abstract out a `content` method could be made to work by adding braces, so that the `&self` borrow goes away earlier than the end of the function. Not in that case. It helps when dropping a borrow earlier avoids to violate the borrowing rules, like in this case: let mut a = [0; 20]; { let b = &mut a[2..4]; } let c = &mut a[6..8]; In the example from the blog post, content borrows the whole struct, and you can't drop the borrow earlier since it is used in the next line.