I wish more explanations would go like this: iteratively. It's much easier for me to see where I suddenly start to struggle. The author also used language that feels more familiar to me, which helped a lot.
Unfortunately, a lot of writers just dump the information and use terms from different fields. And I get that, but it makes me slower to understand it.
I think it's interesting that Lamport chose this style for Paxos Made Simple[0]
Which iteratively goes through a process of proposing a solution for a problem (proposal 0: accept the first value the acceptor comes across) and then reveals the problem with it, and amends the proposal to fix the problem
In paxos's case the logic is very, very simple - it's just the reasons for the logic are difficult to sort out. So teaching it iteratively works very well, because you show how simpler versions fail.
The key thing about it being iterative, I think, is that it builds up the justification for seeing that this is an effective and reasonable solution, one step at a time.
Yeah it's sort of a microcosm of the general path of human learning: build a better model, shoot some holes through it, build a better model. I don't think it's any accident that the socratic method has stuck with us so long
Ability to write an explanation like that is a sign of a great understanding of a topic. If you can write something like that - you've achieved such understanding.
Unfortunately, a lot of writers just dump the information and use terms from different fields. And I get that, but it makes me slower to understand it.