Have you considered that maybe Matt isn’t all that surprised by this optimization, but he is excited about how cool it is, and he wants readers of all backgrounds to also be excited about how cool it is, and is just feigning surprise so that he can share a sense of excitement with his audience?

It’s writing for effect.

Everybody who has seen any video of Matt knows that.

You can be surprised about things you know for years.

For example I am surprised every time I think about js coalescing even tougth I know it for decades.

The one that always gets me is what Truffle/JRuby was capable of, ten years ago:

https://x.com/chrisgseaton/status/619885182104043520

https://x.com/chrisgseaton/status/619888649866448896

I dunno he can honestly be quite a jerk sometimes

AKA you get exactly the opposite…