> Sometimes a programming design pattern becomes common enough to warrant its own special syntax. Python’s list comprehensions are a prime example of such a syntactic sugar.

I disagree with this thesis, although the post is otherwise a very nice guide to list comprehensions. Special syntax for specific types indicates a failure of the language to be generic enough.

List comprehensions anoint lists as a special thing. You don't get to play with list comprehensions, unless you're using the type that the language has decided to let you play with. If you decide to use a different type for some reason, you... can't.

map and filter can be part of a typeclass/interface/protocol (in Python these would just be informal), so you can use them on arbitrary types. If you want to switch your list type, it should just work.

I write a lot of Swift, and I'm constantly frustrated that optional chaining (?.) and exceptions are special things. I can't implement ?. for my type (say, a Result). Only the language creators can use it. Somewhat confusingly, ?? is a thing I can implement.

In Python's case, I think that list comprehensions are necessary because the language's support for first-class closures is poor.