On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 4:54 PM, Ben Gift <benhgift@gmail.com> wrote:
It would be more pythonic to use an empty def call instead.

No, it won't.  Python draws a very strong distinction between expressions and statements.  This line has been blurred somewhat with the advent of  comprehensions and the if-else expression, but it would still require more benefit than three characters in a keyword saving to allow def use in both statements and expressions.

The following, for example, does not look pythonic at all:

def transform(seq, func=def(x):x):
      ...

(Note that I attempted to emulate syntax highlighting to make my point.)