I think you're right, but that's maybe not giving credit to the overall concept presented. The patent description text, even surrounded with the illustrations,

I think you're right, but that's maybe not giving credit to the overall concept presented. The patent description text, even surrounded with the illustrations, still stands on its own. Yes, a picture paints a thousand words, but it would be nice if software engineers would write their descriptions or documentation as precise as that simple paragraph. So don't miss the point of the article simply because maybe the patent illustration doesn't strictly hold. I'm personally tired of seeing lazy data structures that offer great amount of ambiguity in their use and type. This article hits on a great point that software folks can really stand to improve on.