Python 3.8

Python 3.8 was released in October 2019, received bug fixes until May 2021, and will receive security patches until October 2024.

Assignment expression

One of the most known additions to Python 3.8 is the assignment expression, also known as the walrus operator. It was quite a controversial addition to Python, which many people attribute to the stepping down of Guido van Rossum from the Python’s final decision-making role in the CPython evolution.

This new syntax allows developers to write an assignment in the place of an expression. This allows for shorter code by combining what otherwise needs to be multiple lines of code. This is quite useful in control flow operations when combined with reading data or using regular expressions. See the following examples.

This is without PEP 572:

running = True
while running:
    data = get_more_data()
    if not data:
        running...