try statement in with/as is an optional extensionand it is not available unless you explicitly turn it on by running the statement from __future__ import with_statement (see tale of two ifs before we delve into the details of any of the concrete statements in table - want to begin our look at python statement syntax by showing you what you are not going to type in python code so you can compare and contrast it with other syntax models you might have seen in the past consider the following if statementcoded in -like languageif ( yx this might be statement in cc++javajavascriptor similar nowlook at the equivalent statement in the python languageif yx the first thing that may pop out at you is that the equivalent python statement is lesswellcluttered--that isthere are fewer syntactic components this is by designas scripting languageone of python' goals is to make programmerslives easier by requiring less typing more specificallywhen you compare the two syntax modelsyou'll notice that python adds one new thing to the mixand that three items that are present in the -like language are not present in python code what python adds the one new syntax component in python is the colon character (:all python compound statements--statements that have other statements nested inside them--follow the same general pattern of header line terminated in colonfollowed by nested block of code usually indented underneath the header linelike thisheader linenested statement block the colon is requiredand omitting it is probably the most common coding mistake among new python programmers--it' certainly one 've witnessed thousands of times introducing python statements