Fwd: Should I use "if" or "try" (as a matter of speed)?

[Dark Cowherd]

I use Delphi in my day job and evaluating and learning Python over the
weekends and spare time. This thread has been very enlightening to me.

The comments that Joel of Joel on Software makes here
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2003/10/13.html was pretty
convincing. But I can see from the comments made by various people
here that since Python uses Duck typing and encourages typless styles
of functions exceptions may actually be the better way to go.

But one advise that he gives which I think is of great value and is
good practice is
"Always catch any possible exception that might be thrown by a library
I'm using on the same line as it is thrown and deal with it
immediately."

DarkCowherd