title: Example use of assert in Python?
body: <p>I've read about when to use assert vs. exceptions, but I'm still not "getting it".  It seems like whenever I think I'm in a situation where I should use assert, later on in development I find that I'm "looking before I leap" to make sure the assert doesn't fail when I call the function.  Since there's another Python idiom about preferring to use try-except, I generally end up ditching the assert and throwing an exception instead.  I have yet to find a place where it seems right to use an assert.  Can anyone come up with some good examples?</p>