easy_input.py

def easy_input (prompt, defaultValue=None):
    '''Doc string: idiomatically read input with optional default value:
    '''
    prompt = '%s%s: ' % (prompt, ('[%s]' % defaultValue) if defaultValue is not None else '')
    var = raw_input(prompt)
    if not var:
        var = defaultValue
    return var

Note: might want the var = defaultValue to be var = str(defaultValue) to ensure that you always return strings!