[loganfsmyth]

Yeah, I wish that were handled better too. Since the parser is expecting a statements, it parses it like

    {
      a
    }

    = 5

As in, a block with just an "a" in it, followed by an assignment to nothing, which throws an syntax error.

You can however do

    ({a} = 5);

to make the parser switch to expecting a destructuring pattern instead of an block statement.

[dandelany]

Whoops, my last line contains a major typo and should read `{a} = myThing;`. And you've dutifully carried over my typo to your example :D

But regardless, the corrected version of your example: `let a; ({a} = {a:5});` works like a charm and is very handy! Thanks for the tip!