Python dict.get()

I am amazed how I did this mistake for 2 days in row.

>>> isinstance(a, dict)
True
>>> a.get('a', '')[:100]
'1'

I thought it always returns a string ...

>>> a.get('b', '')[:100]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute '__getitem__'

The dict is:

a = {'a': 1, 'b': None}

The proper way is:

>>> (a.get('b') or '')[:100]
''

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