[Sahhaese]

Half the people here are discussing the headline not the article because people don't read articles, they read the headline and jump to the comments.

In this case it drowns out discussion of the article because the article is terrible. It doesn't start with the code as it would look like with loops, but instead says "Let's pretend you don't have loops" and then refactors the logic which has nothing to do with loops, then puts the loop back in.

The same refactoring would be just as clear with loops, and in fact the version without the refactor might be even more clear.

A static function which is only called from a single place isn't always more clear than having the logic inside the loop, especially if all that is left from the original function is the loop.

[ssully]

I think calling the article terrible is a little harsh. It's clearly meant for people just starting with programming, and it utilizes a teaching technique that can be very powerful. It isn't meant to teach you how to do things in the best possible way, but to artificially constrain you so that you approach the techniques you know from many different angles to reach a better understanding.

[el_cujo]

>Half the people here are discussing the headline not the article

This often happens with articles that have really snappy title. If the title was just "Using refactoring instead of loops" it would probably generate more on topic discussion, but probably less interest overall. I wouldn't go as far as to call this particular title "clickbait", it's at least clickbait-adjacent.