To be clear, this is only a problem if your array can ever have less than two values, or if you require that `first` and `last` be different values. The mistak

To be clear, this is only a problem if your array can ever have less than two values, or if you require that `first` and `last` be different values. The mistake is suggesting the unpacking without caveats, because it'll fail in situations that the naive solution doesn't: items = [1] first = items[0] middle = items[1:-1] last = items[-1] This will still work as long as you have any elements.