The author evidently didn't find that option attractive:
« To run curl under strace from Emacs, I’d have to modify Emacs’ behavior to do so. With DTrace I can instrument every curl process without making a single change to Emacs, and with negligible impact to Emacs. That’s a big deal. »
The usual trick to use strace in that kind of situation is to write a script named "curl" that runs curl under strace, and stick the script in your path.
If the author is familiar with DTrace, though, sounds like that's a great solution for them.
Linux now has a number of tools that can do this just fine. strace was the only tool LOONG ago. For the issue described in the article sysdig would be the tool I'd use, but that's just one option.
« To run curl under strace from Emacs, I’d have to modify Emacs’ behavior to do so. With DTrace I can instrument every curl process without making a single change to Emacs, and with negligible impact to Emacs. That’s a big deal. »