> How do you get "proclaimed evil for that" from that?
The title of the section, "the hateful browser", tells you the appropriate lense through which to view the entirety of the content. The reader is primed to assume bad faith everywhere.
He reenforces the view with his commentary, the disbelieving and sarcastic "okay Brendan" which further primes the reader into a bad faith view of his accomplishments and life.
It's not a rebuttal that directly addresses any of Mr Eich's points. If we assume good faith on the part of Eich's quote, then an entirely different approach to the points is warranted.
You can make a similar function that changes the data in place and will be faster. But that comes with side effects which is not functional style.