else: w/o except: - why not?

[Cameron Laird]

In article <mailman.1049211247.3694.python-list at python.org>,
Michael Chermside  <mcherm at mcherm.com> wrote:
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>I can't speak for Tim, but my OWN opinion is precisely in alignment
>with what you have written.
>
>I think that a "bare except" is useful in only two ways. The first
>is like a "finally" clause that's skipped if everything works. In
>other words, the following bits of code is (almost[1]) equivalent to 
>your second example:
>
>    everythingWorked = False
>    try:
>        f1()
>        everythingWorked = True
>    finally:
>        if not everythingWorked:
>            f2()
>
>This doesn't come up much, but it's occasionally useful, and your
>version (using bare except with a raise) is a little prettier.
>
>The other situation is running "untrusted plug-in" code of some 
>sort. Something like this:
>
>    try:
>        randomCodeSomebodyUploaded()
>    except:
>        logProblem()
>
>But really, that hardly EVER comes up. I wish that guido had made
>it harder to spell "bare except" because these situations seem so
>unusual. The next best solution is to just avoid it unless you're
>SURE you need it.
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Thanks, Michael.

I'm rather obsessive on exceptions; I think programmers 
generally misunderstand them and neglect their importance.
Very, VERY few programming texts do them justice; one ele-
ment of my enthusiasm for Alex's books <URL: http://
www.unixreview.com/documents/s=7822/ur0303j/ > is that he
speaks like an adult about them.  Unless you've made a
disciplined survey of the extant literature, you won't
realize how rare this is.

I'm working on a couple of articles of my own to shift the
balance a bit.

I disagree with you on the frequency of "running 'untrusted
plug-in' code", or perhaps I misunderstand what you mean.
Briefly, I mistrust a LOT of code.  Even when I'm using
well-known, mature extensions, my aim is to have at least
top-level error-handlers that catch *everything*.  Are we
on the same subject?
-- 

Cameron Laird <Cameron at Lairds.com>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://phaseit.net/claird/home.html