Single-letter variables are common. If your use-case is inserting breakpoints into arbitrary library code there's no way to guarantee that the builtin won't be shadowed by some arguments or other local variables, making your alias extremely unreliable. def add(a, b): """Arbitrary library code.""" b() # This will fail because the argument shadows the builtin return a + b Sure you could argue that the `breakpoint` builtin is affected by shadowing too, but it's much less common to have a variable named `breakpoint` than `b`. I think an even worse consequence would be the cryptic error message that beginners would be likely to encounter in programming tutorials. Quick example: def add(a): # Assuming some kind of tutorial about functions return a + b NameError: name 'b' is not defined Let's imagine that the beginner made a mistake and forgot to declare the second argument. The error message is clear, but with your `breakpoint` alias this is what the interpreter will print out: TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'int' and 'builtin_function_or_method' Really confusing. I highly oppose this.