[Tutor] Error handling resource needed

[Scot W. Stevenson]

Hello Arthur, 

> Have the 1200 page book Programming Python, e.g.,
> which surprisingly has next to nothing on the subject -
> at least that I can locate.

O'Reilly talks about exceptions in the companion book "Learning Python" 
(Mark Lutz and David Ascher) in Chapter 7 starting on page 194, which is 
probably why their "Programming Python" doesn't have too much on it. Note 
both books are somewhat dated by now, "Learning" slightly less so because 
the core toolset isn't changing quite as fast. Unless, of course, it 
happens to involve division. Or list comprehension. Or generators. Or - 

Anyway, if you want to stick with O'Reilly, there is new book out called 
the "Python Cookbook" (Alex Martelli and David Ascher), which I am reading 
a few pages a day on public transport. It has some very good explanations 
of how to use exceptions using the "Easier to Ask Forgiveness than 
Permission" (EAFP) approach that I hadn't seen anywhere else so far, but 
of course it is not a systematic introduction. You'd have to hunt and peck 
thru the examples. 

[Note: I'm not far enough into the book to feel comfortable enough to 
recommend it to anybody yet (all cliches aside, Berlin public transport is 
terribly efficient), but the 36 pages I have read so far have been very 
enlightening on many things Pythonic, and of course it includes all too 
rare examples of commented Python 2.2 code. Looks like a good one so far.]

Y, Scot

-- 
 Scot W. Stevenson wrote me on Thursday, 22. Aug 2002 in Zepernick, Germany  
       on his happy little Linux system that has been up for 1573 hours       
        and has a CPU that is falling asleep at a system load of 0.01.