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Rob Cliffe writes:
There are many features of the languages where decisions have had to be made one way or another. Once the decision is made, it's unfair to say the semantics are muddy because they could have been different.
The decision hasn't been made yet. At this point, it *is* fair to argue that users will be confused about the semantics of the syntax when they encounter it, and that looking it up is a burden. Many times we see professional Python programmers on these lists say "I always have to look that one up". Whether that argument should win or not, is the question. It has been decided both ways in the past. Here the burden is not so great, but IMO the benefit is even less (to me net negative, as I would use, and often define, appropriate methods, not the syntax). YMMV, I just wanted to lay out the case for multiple interpretations being confusing, as I understand it. And missed two (Greg Ewing suggested non-numerical conflicts, and Steven reported a suggestion of multiple values inserted in container).