[nerdponx]

Maybe I interpreted the article differently than you did.

I got the impression that the candidate was repeating the x == y == z pattern because they'd seen it in other people's code and was pretty sure it worked, not because they knew about comparison chaining. At minimum I'd expect a candidate to be able to clarify that (x == y) == z is not the same thing, not just "idk it works whenever I do it". My reaction to that was: at some point, you do need to at least be able to reason about your own code.

In a more generous light, yes, I agree with everything you wrote. The precise details of comparison chaining are out of scope and I'm sure that most Python developers (myself included) don't know or remember them.

[necovek]

I agree that anyone (including an obviously juniorish candidate) using it should be able to explain it to an extent, but maybe not if you confidently and wrongly claim it doesn't work as an interviewer :)