Dan,
No one here is trying to convince you to use Python. If you don't like
it, don't use it.
The problem is not me, it's the language. No need to take it out on me personally. I've used other languages, Python is lacking in this area. I'm being very frank here, just think about it.
No one was taking it out on you personally. We're just stating that we're not interested in having a discussion about which semantics are best, much less convincing you that Python's choice is the right one. They have been that way for a long time, and the time for making those decisions is long past. We could not change them now if we wanted to. Empirically, I've been on these lists for about 20 years now, and I have not seen this pop up as a frequent issue causing bugs in real code, so I would submit that if there is a lack (or benefit) compared to other languages, it is small.
That said, Python is not alone here. Perl and Ruby have Python's semantics. R introduces NaNs but does not raise an error. Matlab and Julia do raise errors.