Confused me as well, since this is pretty much what DNS is for - I spent some time trying to figure out the problem being solved...
host alias hostName thehostname user your_username
I like the work in the article, but many times when I think I need to whip up a sweet script to fix some problem in the terminal I find the old neckbeards already wrote it, polished it, and left it on the shelf for me to use.