> > Wouldn't it be simpler to make assertRaises return the exception and let
> > the calling code match it as it feels like?
> 
> Hm, that sounds awfully familiar. I can't recall if there was ever a
> good reason not to do this.

IIRC some people felt that having a function named "assertSomething"
return something other None wasn't "pure".
The other reason is that you couldn't get the raised exception in a very
practical way if used as a context manager.

> > (or, at least, find a shorter name than assertRaisesWithRegexpMatch :-))
> 
> assertRaisesRegex?

Sounds better!