the problem the author is solving is clear; "Instead of writing gigantic render functions that do everything under the sun (and then more, admit it!) you should break your render methods into small chunks. That way you only ever re-render what you need."

but breaking apart your render method is only one way to achieve this. using a sane layout manager with subviews is my preferred approach (though i suppose you could argue this is just breaking up the render method across several views). this technique is also admittedly a pain at small scales.

the beauty of this technique, though, is that every view is responsible for it's own rendering. that is, parent views don't need to be aware of the re-rendering process of their subviews (how or when). another great benefit is you will find yourself referencing items by selector less often, and instead through the subview's element.