Request for feedback on my first Python program

[Scott Meyers]

I'm a C++ programmer who's writing his very first Python program.  This
means the program is going to be gross, and I apologize for that in
advance.  I don't really have anybody I can show it to for feedback, so I'm
hoping I can get some comments here.  If there is a better place for me to
seek guidance, please let me know.

The program is supposed to read a file containing directory and file names,
one per line.  (The file can also contain comment and blank lines, which
should be ignored.)  For each file or directory name, the program should
print out whether it's a directory, a file, or neither.  That's it.

Here's the code; you may want to hold your nose:

  import sys
  import os
  import string
  
  # Error status codes
  BadInvocation = 1
  
  def usage(programName):
    print "Usage: " + os.path.basename(programName) + " [file]"
    sys.exit(BadInvocation)
  
  # Take a list of strings, return an equivalent list where the following
  # strings have been removed:
  # - those with no non-whitespace characters
  # - those whose first non-whitespace character is a "#"
  def getMeaningfulLines(lines):
    nonCommentLines = []
    for i in range(0,len(lines)):
      try:
        firstToken = string.split(lines[i])[0]
        if firstToken[0] != "#": 
          nonCommentLines.append(lines[i])
      except IndexError:
        continue
    return nonCommentLines
  
  
  # if this language had a main(), it'd be here...
  if len(sys.argv) != 2: usage(sys.argv[0])
  
  lines = getMeaningfulLines(open(sys.argv[1]).readlines())
  for i in lines:
    print i + " is a ",
    if os.path.isdir(i): print "directory"
    elif os.path.isfile(i): print "file"
    else: print "non-directory and non-file"

In addition to the numerious stylistic gaffes I'm sure I've made, the
program also doesn't work correctly.  Given this input file,

  d:\
  d:\temp\foo.py

I get this output:

  d:\
   is a  non-directory and non-file
  d:\temp\foo.py
   is a  non-directory and non-file

Aside from being ugly (how do I get rid of the newline that follows each
directory or file name?), the problem is that the first entry IS a
directory and the second one IS a file.  So clearly I'm doing something
wrong.  Any idea what it is?

Thanks very much in advance.

Scott