I don't see the so called "elegant" solution any special at all, but if the level 1 programmer in your org needs more time to understand, and maybe making bugs

I don't see the so called "elegant" solution any special at all, but if the level 1 programmer in your org needs more time to understand, and maybe making bugs or mistakes, coz of not fully understand the code, than it's a problem. See Occam razor. The "elegant" solution tries to be smart, or optimize where there is no need at all. Yes the simple "elegant" solution is just 1 instruction slower, and longer only in the end, but the inline version is 1 instruction slower in the loop, which is stated more elegant in the article. EDIT: Or you can get the same principle as the Occam's razor, which is KISS keep it simple, stupid, silly and straightforward