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From: Alan Bawden <alan@csail.mit.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Subject: Python told me a Joke
Date: Mon, 02 Sep 2024 03:55:15 -0400
Organization: ITS Preservation Society
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    Python 3.10.5 (v3.10.5:f37715, Jul 10 2022, 00:26:17) [GCC 4.9.2] on linux
    Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
    >>> x,_,z = [1,2,3]

Works as expected.

Now I didn't expect the following to work (but Python sometimes
surprises me!), so I tried:
 
    >>> x,2,z = [1,2,3]
      File "<stdin>", line 1
        x,2,z = [1,2,3]
            ^^^^^^^^^^^
    SyntaxError: invalid syntax. Maybe you meant '==' or ':=' instead of '='?

Yeah, that makes sense, no surprises today...  Except "maybe you meant
'=='..." caught my attention.  _Could_ that be what someone would want
in this situation I wondered?  So I tried:

    >>> x,2,z == [1,2,3]
    (1, 2, False)

Now that made me laugh.

- Alan

[ Some people reading this will be tempted to explain what's really
  going on here -- it's not hard to understand.  But please remember that
  a joke is never funny if you have to explain it. ]