I would have expected the language documentation to focus more on this observation and to explain for instance how self modification is used to implement while loops. But I don't even see the term mentioned anywhere?!

Good point! It's mentioned in the github wiki here: https://github.com/tomhea/flip-jump/wiki/Learn-FlipJump#memo...

It was once in the Readme but as I kept developing it more it become longer and longer, so I moved it into the wiki, and especially to here: https://esolangs.org/wiki/FlipJump

This was actually a not uncommon approach to implementing loops in earliest mainfraims.

Do you have any article that I can read about it? Sounds interesting!