[haswell]

To me, the attraction is less about the specific art used to communicate the concept, and more about the careful attention to a fully-formed analogy that explains the tech in completely different terms.

These kinds of explanations tend to focus on the most critical/important concepts, and help validate (or dispel) assumptions I've made about the tech.

This focus on analogy also lets the author tell the story faster, because I already understand:

- What an otter is

- That rivers flow

- The water flowing down a river that forks will be spread across those forks

- etc...

Depending on the strength of the analogy, it's possible to get the reader on the same page much faster than an intro/tutorial that must first explain foundational concepts just to get to the basics of the technology itself.

[bee_rider]

I've never really been a fan of analogies, because I feel like in the end I just need to first understand what the thing is underneath, so I can understand how the author has built their analogy... so the task of understanding why they used this analogy is equivalent to understanding the thing itself.

But I can't deny they are very popular!

[caymanjim]

Do people find these analogies helpful? The concepts aren't that difficult, the audience for them is already technical, and adding a cutesy abstraction about it makes it harder to understand.

The art and animation in this is great, but I feel like the author's talents are wasted on a document with no audience. Make a kids' book instead!