I'm encouraging the use of try: except around here. I think the distinction between 'routine' and 'non-routine' only makes sense if exceptions are so terribly slower than the routine that using them for routine use will have a terrible effect in slowness on your program. It's like using: string1 = string1 + newstring inside a loop. The reason you don't do this is not because there is something conceptually wrong with this idea, but because it's horribly slow. And if smarter pythons recognise this, and emit fast code for it anyway, then that objection goes away, and then, well, it is a more straight forward way to code it. So, if performance is not an issue, then I would recommend using try: except: wherever it feels natural, and not let '20 years of knowing that in java exceptions are horrible big and slow things to be used sparingly' influence what feels natural. Laura