Syntactic Sugar

Augmented assignment operators are concise and clear.

x += 1  # Equivalent to `x = x + 1`
x *= 2  # Equivalent to `x = 2 * x`

Tuples can be unpacked with assignment.

tup = (1, 2)
a, b = tup  # Equivalent to `a = tup[0]; b = tup[1]`

Functions can return multiple values as a tuple without parentheses.

def min_max(items):
    return min(items), max(items)

minimum, maximum = min_max([1, 2, 3, 4, 5])

The statement pass maintains grammar for empty bodies.

# Wrong: Indentation Error
def incomplete_function():

# Correct
def incomplete_function():
    pass

# Correct
for i in range(10):
    pass

Comprehension concisely makes lists, sets and dictionaries.

even_squares = [x**2 for x in range(10) if x % 2 == 0]

Use with-statements when there is a natural setup and exit. For example, the following two code snippets are equivalent.

f = open("example.txt", "r")
try:
    contents = f.read()
finally:
    f.close()

with open("example.txt", "r") as f:
    contents = f.read()