"Pattern matching", in the context of functional programming languages, most often refers to the complex combination of destructuring bind and conditional contr

"Pattern matching", in the context of functional programming languages, most often refers to the complex combination of destructuring bind and conditional control flow based on which binding succeeded. This article describing the Python feature of multiple assignment demonstrates only the destructuring assignment (assignment, because it is Python and these variables can be reassigned). There is no control flow tied to this operation, except for the exceptions that can be thrown when the LHS and RHS have incompatible structure. Clojure is another example of a language with destructuring binding that is not tied to a control flow construct. Clojure functions and `let` bindings can use a destructuring syntax to bind to elements in a data structure. There is no tightly-linked control flow structure that goes along with this binding mechanism. It is my understanding that there are several libraries available that implement pattern matching, but I do not use these. Most often, when I have seen pattern matching described to an audience with a background in imperative languages, it is compared to a super-powered switch statement. This gives the impression that the important part is the control flow. Languages such as Python and Clojure show that there is inherent value in the destructuring assignment/bind, even out of the context of control flow.