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Comment by stana | Hacker News Reader

  API_KEY = os.environ.get("YOUTUBE_API_KEY")
  CHANNEL_ID = os.environ.get("YOUTUBE_CHANNEL_ID")

  assert(API_KEY, "Missing YOUTUBE_API_KEY")
  assert(CHANNEL_ID, "Missing CHANNEL_ID")

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Do you use parens with assert? In Python, the assert statement is not a function, right?

That bit me before... it created a tuple which evaluated as true.

Assertions are disabled via `python -O` so they probably shouldn't be used like this.

On the other hand, presumably the program will just crash anyway with some terse permission/request error later on if these values aren't set

Doesn't matter. Assertions should be used for things that are always true (barring bugs in the program). That isn't the case here.

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