> The secret of exception sanity is a standard exception hierarchy, like Python's. Catching an exception class in Python also gets all its subclasses. "Environm

> The secret of exception sanity is a standard exception hierarchy, like Python's. Catching an exception class in Python also gets all its subclasses. "EnvironmentError" covers all I/O errors, network errors, and such, but doesn't cover internal program errors. New user-defined exceptions are added below the most appropriate part of the standard exception hierarchy. So Python usually doesn't have Java's exception hell. You know, Java also has a standard exception hierarchy. However, whether in Java or Python, it usually makes sense for the exceptions of a library NOT to be part of the standard hierarchy. For instance, SQLAlchemy's exceptions all inherit from SQLAlchemyError. It's the same thing in Java.