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.
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