Rats! vararg assignments don't work

[Matimus]

Your attemtp:

[code]
first, rest = arglist[0], arglist[1:]
[/code]

Is the most obvious and probably the most accepted way to do what you
are looking for. As for adding the fucntionality you first suggested,
it isn't likely to be implemented. The first step would be to write a
PEP though. Remember, in Python "there is only one way to do it". So,
unless you can come up with a valid use case where that syntax allows
you to do something that wasn't possible before, I wouldn't count on
getting much support.