That's not really a fair comparison. The first example is a fairly natural way that a reasonable person could model the logic in their head. Knowing that your p

That's not really a fair comparison. The first example is a fairly natural way that a reasonable person could model the logic in their head. Knowing that your programming language provides a more concise way is an optimization. A basic one admittedly, but a mere optimization nonetheless. In contrast, your example is kind of the opposite situation - it's an example of forgoing the most natural, human representation in favour of a highly Python-specific one. In other words, the first one happens when you know the abstract logic, but don't know your tools very well; your example happens when you know lots of useless details about the tool but you're struggling with the abstract logic. Actually, the example from the article suggests to me that the author misunderstands what I regard as the most fundamental programming skill: knowing the precedence of correctness over all other concerns, including efficiency. It's better to attach the right parts together badly than to attach the wrong parts like a pro.