Hi, If you are asking why the popular solution is preferred over yours, it is probably because it is shorter and easier for an experienced developer to verify as correct. Extra intermediate variables that are only used once are often best avoided.

What if the idea wasn't code golfing but to discover a python language feature that makes a one line solution possible?

This is an excellent kata to learn about key= in sorting. Well done.

Googles "code golf." Ah very cool. That would be a fun game, but maybe you'd win a little too often. :). Do comments count? It might be fun to comment "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_golf. Can you do better?" and then do the code golf. Does everyone else already know what it is? First time for me.

lechevalier has an impressive and deep understand of python. How easy would it be for a typical Python dev to maintain code like this? Is his level expected for all professional devs?

Very cool how you introduce ast in a simple gentle way. Bravo!

Would the kata instructions be easier to understand if the examples that used zeros and dots instead used 1s and 0s?

This solution demonstrates deep understand of Python. Very well done!

Note: in the current version of this kata, the function name is curry_partial.

Very nice design. Demonstrates features of python worth learning.

Very apealing approach!

Is this solution more pythonic than one where every value is assigned to a constant and then the constants are used in the code?

By the way, your solution is really elegant