Eh, I'm not sure why I even bother. You're only cheating yourself from the valuable learning experience.

My apologies for being rude.

Constraints are added by kata author, they are not implicit. Anything what is not blacklisted is allowed. Any accepted solution is valid. So simple.

You lost me.

within given constraints

The constraints were to not use functions such as eval, exec, compile, etc. You used ast.parse which, according to the Python documentation, is equivalent to a compile call. Ergo, you did not provide a solution within the constraints.

being called a cheater for being different is somewhat disappointing

Why so disappointed?

That's your point. The purpose of any kata is to provide a valid solution within given constraints. It's just an exercise. Most of them don't have a single valid solution. That's my point and being called a cheater for being different is somewhat disappointing.

Why so sad? If understanding the problem space and using tools already available is cheating, then you will be suprised how much creative engineering is achieved that way.

That's cheating! :(