Verbose and flexible args and kwargs syntax

[Eelco Hoogendoorn]

The above examples are seldom needed in Python because we have one

general method to repeatedly split a sequence into head and tail.

it = iter(iterable) # 'it' now represents the sequenced iterable
head = next(it) # 'it' now represents the tail after removing the head

In other words, next(it) encompasses all of your examples and many more.
Because 'it' is mutated to represent the tail, it does not need to be
rebound and therefore is not.

The question in language design is never 'could we do these things
before'. The answer is obvious: yes our CPUs are turing complete; we can
do anything. The question is; how would we like to do them?

So do you think the new head/tail unpacking features in python 3 are
entirely uncalled for? I personally quite like them, but I would like
them to be more general.