[dietrichepp]

What makes it awesome? It seems like a way to take something simple (swapping variables) and write it in a complex way (three operations) so that neither the humans nor the compilers reading it will know what is going on.

Real temporary variables are clearer for both humans and machines.

[imd]

Read crntaylor's explanation of this via group theory: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5278915

So this is awesome insofar as you find things like group theory awesome (I did). But like he says, if you find this awesome to use in production code, that's a horse of another color.

[kombinatorics]

What's the point of finding the trillionth number in pi? The same is implied here. We do things, just because we can.