Why not just show the out-of-range index?

[Gary Herron]

Russ wrote:
>> Rather, they (like I) will encourage to OP to submit a patch that fixes the problem.
>>     
>
> Now, that would be rather silly. I would have to familiarize myself
> with the code for the Python interpreter, then send a patch to the
> maintainers (and hope they notice it in their inboxes), while the
> maintainers themselves could probably "fix" the problem in two minutes
> flat. No thanks!
>
> My suggestion is trivial to implement and would benefit every Python
> programmer (even if only slightly), so I don't think it is too much to
> ask for.
>
>   
But with that argument you just perpetuate the problem. It is the way it 
is because nobody has cared enough to make it different. That error 
message has certainly never bothered me enough to wish for something 
different.

You may be able to prompt someone into changing it, but if we've gone 
this long without caring to fix it, then I'd not hold out much hope for 
that. Python and the whole open source movement is a volunteer effort by 
people who care enough to contribute. Your contributions would be 
welcome, but your complaints are likely to be ignored.

Gary Herron