docs

Doc/whatsnew/3.14.rst

@@ -80,6 +80,11 @@ Other Language Changes
   command line option. For example, ``python -O -c 'assert await 1'``
   now produces a :exc:`SyntaxError`. (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra in :gh:`121637`.)
 
+* Writes to ``__debug__`` are now detected even if the code is optimized
+  away by the :option:`-O` command line option. For example,
+  ``python -O -c 'assert (__debug__ := 1)'`` now produces a
+  :exc:`SyntaxError`. (Contributed by Irit Katriel in :gh:`122245`.)
+
 * Added class methods :meth:`float.from_number` and :meth:`complex.from_number`
   to convert a number to :class:`float` or :class:`complex` type correspondingly.
   They raise an error if the argument is a string.

Misc/NEWS.d/next/Core and Builtins/2024-07-24-22-39-07.gh-issue-122245.LVa9v8.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+Detection of writes to ``__debug__`` is moved from the compiler's codegen
+stage to the symtable. This means that these errors now detected even in
+code that is optimized away before codegen (such as assertions with the
+:option:`-O` command line option.)