I think you have a great point here–and I think you are right about why people are taught a specific way of coding. It is often related to something they already know, e.g. the infamous “Java for programmers” class that many schools have. Instead of teaching you cool things that Java could do, they attempt to show you that Java is similar to that which you already know.

What I really liked about your simple examples is that the code is so much more readable and understandable. And isn’t that the point of good coding?

Nice blog.