A small inconsistency in syntax?

[Michael Abbott]

"Terry Reedy" <tjreedy at home.com> wrote in 
news:cc7C7.157756$5A3.55376154 at news1.rdc2.pa.home.com:

> 
> "Guido van Rossum" <guido at python.org> wrote in message
> news:cp7ktjcbzx.fsf at cj20424-a.reston1.va.home.com...
> 
>> FWIW, I agree.  I just never thought of this.

Encouraging; I'm sorry to have raised such a trivial point, though!

> Allowing for null matches and applying the rule recursively,
> 
> a,() = 1,()
> 
> should also be legal, as Abbott also expected.  I can imagine some use
> to
> 
> () = function()
> 
> which I presume would raise exception if function() returned anything
> other than ().

Absolutely.