Walrus Operator in 3.8

[Reverend_Jim]

Algol and Algol68 both used the walrus operator for assignment to avoid the ambiguity between assignment and equality testing. Personally I find Python's use of == for equality testing ugly and would prefer a special operator like := (APL uses a left arrow) for all assignments, leaving = for equality testing only. That's not going to happen.

But I don't see why := is needed at all. Take the construct

m = myfunc(args)
if m == 27:
    do something

using walrus notation it becomes

if m := myfunc(args) == 27:
    do something

but why can't Python interpret the following in the same way?

if m = myfunc(args) == 27:
    do something

or to make the intent clearer (but parentheses really not required)

if (m = myfunc(args)) == 27:
    do something

if "myfunc(args)" results in a value which is then assigned to m, then certainly m is an expression that evaluates to the same value, and "m = myfunc(args)" should be allowed in the conditional the same as "myfunc(args)".