just curious

[Erik Max Francis]

Elaine Jackson wrote:

> Any deep reason for this, or "just because"? TIA.

It's because the augmented assignment operators, like +=, are supposed
to efficiently mutate objects when they have the opportunity (at least
for the builtin classes).  So a = a + b always creates a new object, but
a += b might just mutate a preexisting object if that option is
available.

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