Add the following code to the top of a CGI Python script to enable colorized, annotated traceback formatting whenever a fatal error occurs in your script:

import cgitb; cgitb.enable()

When in development mode, this is likely more helpful than a '500 Internal Server Error'.

An essential part of any CGI written in perl that will push all the fatal errors to the browser instead of punting with the all-too-familiar 500 Internal Server error:

use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);