How to test if a module exists?

[Seebs]

On 2010-11-11, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo at geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
> In message <mailman.843.1289438674.2218.python-list at python.org>, Tim Chase 
> wrote:

>> Amusingly, as others have noted, you replied with an unobfuscated
>> email address.

> This
><http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2010-November/1260153.html> 
> would seem to be an independent, true record of what members of python-list 
> would see of my posting, would it not?

It might or might not be.  Not all of us are "members of python-list".  I'm
reading this on Usenet.  (Where the only distinction I see is that the
country name is spelled out.)

> You would agree that it shows my e-
> mail address as obfuscated, would you not?

I don't know whether that counts as obfuscated.

> So if you claim to be seeing an 
> unobfuscated e-mail address for my posting on python-list, you would be 
> lying, would you not?

I have found that, in general, the chances that someone is lying are very
low.  The chances are much higher that they are mistaken, or that I have
misunderstood their claim.  Or for that matter, that there's Something
Strange Going On.  Say, someone's got a Usenet provider that Helpfully
Fixes things, or someone set up an aliasing thing in a Very Clever newsreader
some time back so they could reply to your posts and didn't notice it
was then performing the same aliasing when displaying the group, or...

Usually, with people who aren't obvious frothing kooks, I tend to view
"lying" as being an extremely unusual explanation.

-s
-- 
Copyright 2010, all wrongs reversed.  Peter Seebach / usenet-nospam at seebs.net
http://www.seebs.net/log/ <-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictures
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