On Wed, Jun 24, 2020 at 12:46 PM Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> wrote:

Everyone,

If you've commented and you're worried you haven't been heard, please add your issue *concisely* to this new thread. Note that the following issues are already open and will be responded to separately; please don't bother commenting on these until we've done so:

- Alternative spellings for '|'
- Whether to add an 'else' clause (and how to indent it)
- A different token for wildcards instead of '_'
- What to do about the footgun of 'case foo' vs. 'case .foo'

(Note that the last two could be combined, e.g. '?foo' or 'foo?' to mark a variable binding and '?' for a wildcard.)

I don't think combining assignment and wildcard will help. '_' is fine for that. I could get used to '?' as an assignment or a wildcard, but it would always be a double-take if it was both.

I've seen languages that use '>foo' to indicate assignment, but I can't for the life of me remember which now, aside from shell redirection. '=foo' might be more obvious. In the end I think it's only important that there's some assignment operator, and we'll all get used to whatever you choose.