very much agree, but for different reasons. as someone new to python, I find it very hard to wrap my head around the syntax at first glance

this is not the best practice. the elif is unnecessary thanks to the boundaries given by the return statements. the else statement is also unnecessary for the same reason. you can simply return the last value, because if the previous value is true, the code will return and the last statement won't execute

this is clever. it is more also obtuse. a more senior dev might look at this and immediately know what's going on, but a junior dev might not. it is not a best practice

this is clever. it is also obtuse. not best practice