Why is extended slice assignment less flexible than regular slice assignment?
According to the Python documentation on extended slices : If you have a mutable sequence such as a list or an array you can assign to or delete an extended slice, but there are some differences between assignment to extended and regular slices. Assignment to a regular slice can be used to change the length of the sequence: >>> a = range(3) >>> a [0, 1, 2] >>> a[1:3] = [4, 5, 6] >>> a [0, 4, 5, 6] Extended slices aren't this flexible. When assigning to an extended slice, the list on the right hand side of the statement must contain the same number of items as the slice it is replacing: >>> a =