Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan@gmail.com> added the comment: It's a matter of historical timing: PEP 343 was written before try/except/finally was allowed, when try/finally and try/except were still distinct statements. However, PEP 341 was *also* accepted and implemented for Python 2.5, allowing for the modern try/except/finally form: https://docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/2.5.html#pep-341-unified-try-except-fin... ---------- _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue39037> _______________________________________