Using try vs if in python

Question

Is there a rationale to decide which one of try or if constructs to use, when testing variable to have a value?

For example, there is a f

Answer 1

Which of the following would be more preferable and why?

Look Before You Leap is preferable in this case. With the exception approach, a TypeError could occur anywhere in your loop body and it'd get caught and thrown away, which is not what you want and will make debugging tricky.

(I agree with Brandon Corfman though: returning None for ‘no items’ instead of an empty list is broken. It's an unpleasant habit of Java coders that should not be seen in Python. Or Java.)