alt Hacker NewsSaying anything about security without mentioning the nature of the threat is bad. It's also industry common practice.
Obfuscating JS is probably a decent defence against your 9 year old brother. It is not against a motivated, well funded state sponsored attacker.
Part of what bugs me about English is the practical ambiguity of the colloquial understanding of what "<foo> is <bar>" implies. Does it mean that all foos are also bars or does it mean there exists a foo where that foo is also bar? Does it mean foo is always bad or foo is often bar? Dutch is my first language and I grew up in South Viet Nam, Nigeria and Texas. I did not get the standard programming.
The author gave a few examples where compiled/minified code is public (Javascript and games) or automated vuln exploits (Wordpress example). That does explain nature of threat well enough for me.
There's a whole spectrum between 9 year old and a motivated state actor, and obfuscation is effective for a big part of the spectrum.