Your two snippets do different things: try with a
, b
and c
equal to 7
, 8
and 9
respectively.
The first snippet sets the three variables to 9
, 8
and 9
. In other words, max(a, b)
is calculated before a
is assigned to the value of c
. Essentially, all that a, b = c, max(a, b)
does is push two values onto the stack; the variables a
and b
are then assigned to these values when they are popped back off.
On the other hand, running the second snippet sets all three variables to 9
. This is because a
is set to point to the value of c
before the function call max(a, b)
is made.