[zingar]

Article author here, this is a really good point and I can see how that exchange might undermine the point (or even the entire article) for some readers.

I think I understand it as fighting fire with fire: that people who are enthusiastic about refactoring without understanding and writing tests are prone to pushing their agenda without really engaging on the substantive points (as in someone who talks "refactoring" without taking in how central automated tests are in the refactoring community). Such a person sometimes needs a confrontational push to go back to the basics on this point.