I actually have to agree if you are coming to something like a = b[:] in code you are going to understand what it means or you are probably going to be mi

I actually have to agree if you are coming to something like a = b[:] in code you are going to understand what it means or you are probably going to be missing a large portion of other things that are going on in the python code. With that said I must also state that I think a = list(b) is much prettier and is easier to understand to me.