Helpful Wikipedia Monkey wrote:

... you can cmd-tab back to a hidden app with ease. Minimizing is for things that you don't need to jump back to immediately. In my case, it's for things that I intend to read soon, then eventually find in the dock like two months later, which I then close without actually reading them. Hiding's much quicker, so long as you want to get an entire app out of your way and not just a window.

As a Windows newbie, someday I'll figure out how to get a window that's pinned to the left to stay pinned to the left. Someday.