What’s the disadvantage of using a function? To a regular user, this will look like just a function without the def. You can always modify the behaviour of a function by writing if-statements in the function (granted, you can’t do this after the fact, but I would say that’s a benefit for code readability)
I’m also going to preempt the discussion of inserting code directly into the AST by readying the inline-function discussions: Inline Python functions and methods - Ideas - Discussions on Python.org and Adding inline in Python - Ideas - Discussions on Python.org