a = b = 1 just syntactic sugar?

[Terry Reedy]

"Steven Taschuk" <staschuk at telusplanet.net> wrote in message
news:mailman.1055177098.5381.python-list at python.org...
>     factorial = lambda x: x==0 and 1 or x*selfref.myself(x-1)

If the lambda is immediately name bound, the selfref contortion is not
needed:

>>> factorial = lambda x: x==0 and 1 or x*factorial(x-1)
>>> factorial(6)
720

but it is a clever hack for when it is not.

Terry J. Reedy