I'm about 2 weeks deep in my study of Python as an introductory language. I've hit a point in Zed's *"Learn Python the Hard Way"* where he suggests:

> 
> Use a while-loop only to loop forever, and that means probably never. This only applies
>  to Python, other languages are different.
> 
> 
> 

I've googled all over this, referenced everything I can, but I can't find any reason in the world why this would be a convention in Python. What makes it different? 

When I gave up programming 10 years ago, I was working in VB and would regularly be told to get rid of my For loops and use While loops instead. I was a hack (as I am today, though I wrote a LOT of code back then), so I just did what I was told without questioning it. Well, now I'm questioning it. Is this a speed issue? Is it just to avoid escape-less infinites?