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

[Robert Kern]

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!

And I believe that answers your original question.

PS: begging for a fix on comp.lang.python is even less likely to get the
developer's attention than posting a patch. They listen to patch submissions
much more than comp.lang.python. At the very least, you should submit a bug
report even if you don't want to take the opportunity to learn how to fix it
yourself.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
 that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
 an underlying truth."
  -- Umberto Eco