Sorting out http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27674602/hide-traceback-unless-a-debug-flag-is-set

friendly_traceback.py

import sys
debug = True

def exceptionHandler(exception_type, exception, traceback, debug_hook=sys.excepthook):
    '''Print user friendly error messages normally, full traceback if DEBUG on.
       Adapted from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27674602/hide-traceback-unless-a-debug-flag-is-set
    '''
    if debug:
        print '\n*** Error:'
        # raise
        debug_hook(exception_type, exception, traceback)
    else:
        print "\t%s: %s" % (exception_type.__name__, exception)
sys.excepthook = exceptionHandler

if __name__ == '__main__':
    their_md5 = 'c38f03d2b7160f891fc36ec776ca4685'
    my_md5 = 'c64e53bbb108a1c65e31eb4d1bb8e3b7'
    if their_md5 != my_md5:
        raise ValueError('md5 sum does not match!')
        

rev5: working implementation, as per Reut's example