What’s New in Python 3.8
I don't understand why the walrus operator is needed at all.  Why not allow, this to work:<p><pre><code>    if m=whatever():
        do_something
</code></pre>
Why create a new assignment operator?  For all the talk about making code not confusing, etc., some of these decisions sure seem nonsensical.<p>Oh, OK, it confuses passing arguments into a function by name?  Really?  C'mon.<p>Also, I can't understand the nearly religious rejection of pre and post increment/decrement (++/--) and, for the love of Picard, the switch() statement.<p>I enjoy using Python but some of these things are just silly.  Just my opinion, of course.  What do I know anyhow?  I've only been writing software for over thirty years while using over a dozen languages ranging from machine language (as in op codes) to APL and every new fad and modern language in between.<p>As I watch languages evolve what I see is various levels of ridiculous reinvention of the wheel for very little in the way of real gains in productivity, code quality, bug eradication, expressiveness, etc.  Python, Objective-C, Javascript, PHP, C# and a bunch of other mutants are just C and C++ that behave differently.  Sure, OK, not strictly true at a technical level, but I'll be damned if it all doesn't end-up with machine code that does pretty much the same darn thing.<p>The world did exist before all of these "advanced" languages were around and we wrote excellent software (and crappy software too, just like today).<p>What's worse is that some of these languages waste a tremendous amount of resources and clock cycles to do the same thing we used to do in "lower" languages without any issues whatsoever.  Mission critical, failure tolerant, complex software existed way before someone decided that the switch() statement was an abomination and that pre and post increment/decrement are somehow confusing or unrefined.  Kind of makes you wonder what mental image they have of a programmer, doesn't it?  Really.  In my 30+ years in the industry I have yet to meet someone who is laid to waste, curled-up into a fetal position confused about pre and post increment/decrement, switch statements and other things deemed too complex and inelegant in some of these languages and pedantic circles.<p>Geez!<p></rant off>