“I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

All this over a god damn bikeshed that no one will care one way or the other about 6 months after its implemented. He didn't loose faith after the 2->3 transitioner but but a goddamn assignment operator that works just like so many other languages.

I mean it was bound to happen at some point, but I am really disheartened that it happened in this way.

what you're seeing is the straw that broke the camel's back

Python's original "sales pitch" was that it was a clean and simple language. As years go by and more weird stuff is piled in, it becomes less Pythonic.

I forget which book this was from, but when I was learning python back in 2003 a major selling point was 'you can't make assignments in control structures'. Happy days to a physics undergrad who had seen more if(a=3) in C code than he could shake a stick at.

Sometimes less is more. Python is turning into more is less. It doesn't need to be everything to everyone.