Grammar changes, in particular things used everywhere like function invocations, have to be worth paying the price for changing/adding new rules. The benefits of fewer characters and more explicit intention weren't enough to outweigh the costs.
There were other considerations: Do linters prefer one syntax to another? Does the name refer to the parameter or the argument in tooling? Should users feel pressure to name local variables the same as the function's parameters? What about more shorthand for common cases like func(x=self.x, y=self.y)?
I personally did not like the func(x=, y=) syntax. I think their example of Ruby's func(x:, y:) would actually make more sense, since it's syntax that would read less like "x equals nothing", and more "this is special syntax for passing arguments".
Guess I will chime in for the dissent: there is already so much Python language. The more special gotchas that are added just for these minor wins is not worth it. In fact, if I ever saw a function that was foo(bar=) I would correct that to be explicit immediately. ‘import this’ and all that.
Said as a curmudgeon that has never used a walrus.
The discussion: https://discuss.python.org/t/pep-736-keyword-argument-shorth...
The rejection: https://discuss.python.org/t/pep-736-shorthand-syntax-for-ke...
Grammar changes, in particular things used everywhere like function invocations, have to be worth paying the price for changing/adding new rules. The benefits of fewer characters and more explicit intention weren't enough to outweigh the costs.
There were other considerations: Do linters prefer one syntax to another? Does the name refer to the parameter or the argument in tooling? Should users feel pressure to name local variables the same as the function's parameters? What about more shorthand for common cases like func(x=self.x, y=self.y)?
I personally did not like the func(x=, y=) syntax. I think their example of Ruby's func(x:, y:) would actually make more sense, since it's syntax that would read less like "x equals nothing", and more "this is special syntax for passing arguments".