The one in the docs is CSS-ing floating two divs next to each other inside a single container/page.
You will not be able to changePage on the left panel, while keeping the right panel, no urlhistory support, no separate scrolling and so on.
If you need any of these, you need separate page containers holding JQM pages, which is more or less what multiview does.
As long as you need basic layouts, stick the JQM docs. More complicated stuff... give multiview a shot (but beware, I'm way behind on documentation...)