This problem was designed to demonstrate the walrus operator.

The walrus operator := in Python essentially assigning a variable's value and using the variable itself within the same expression. Here is an example:

s = 0
while (s := s + 1) < 5:
    print(s)

which outputs

1
2
3
4

What this code is doing is first initializing a variable s as ~0~. Then, while s is less than ~5~, output its value. However, before we check if the value of s is less than ~5~, we first increment s by ~1~. This is possible because of the walrus operator.

Another hint for an optimization is that boolean expressions are evaluated as ~0~ for false and ~1~ for true. This can be used for indexing as follows:

print(["This is false", "This is true"][3 < 5])

which outputs

This is True

This code essentially creates a ~2~-element list, and we access the value at index ~1~ since the expression ~3<5~ evaluates as a true statement.

The remaining optimizations for a full score are left as an exercise to the reader.