The best I could interpret it is to have it both ways; break it down into small private functions, then nest (edit: encapsulate) these in a larger one where they can't be seen by anyone else.

Both and neither.

It depends on you and your team, the project requirements, the rest of the codebase, and so many other things. The choice you make is less important than _why_ you make it.

Maybe the western approach of actually giving useful information beats the zen approach of confusing the fuck out of people.

You’re going to hate reading this: https://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html