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Asked: 2026-05-11T20:12:02+00:00

In an answer (by S.Lott) to a question about Python’s try…else statement: Actually, even

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In an answer (by S.Lott) to a question about Python’s try...else statement:

Actually, even on an if-statement, the
else: can be abused in truly terrible
ways creating bugs that are very hard
to find. […]

Think twice about else:. It is
generally a problem. Avoid it except
in an if-statement and even then
consider documenting the else-
condition to make it explicit.

Is this a widely held opinion? Is else considered harmful?

Of course you can write confusing code with it but that’s true of any other language construct. Even Python’s for...else seems to me a very handy thing to have (less so for try...else).

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    S.Lott has obviously seen some bad code out there. Haven’t we all? I do not consider else harmful, though I’ve seen it used to write bad code. In those cases, all the surrounding code has been bad as well, so why blame poor else?

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