My second example would bite me quite often.

Do I get this right?

You have to do really hard line testing to avoid simple problems that could be avoided if just variables had to be declared at first use? :-(

But like old C compilers, there is "lint"?

I'm all for nostalgia for old C compilers (except a buggy one, that stole weeks of my life). But that is strange.

I thought Python was all about safety and no problems because of a well designed syntax and coding standards akin to bondage?

Ah well, thanks for information!