Sure, or you can catch a KeyError and do something else entirely. I'm aware of all this, just pointing out some differences to the person to whom I replied. Py

Sure, or you can catch a KeyError and do something else entirely. I'm aware of all this, just pointing out some differences to the person to whom I replied. Python's dict.get is a bit like the getOrElse found in Scala. It's quite handy and can be seen as advanced conceptually. I actually added some code like that to a recent post about PHP here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2771304 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2771304