[masklinn]

> the `while True` will never terminate

The iterator is infinite on purpose (it has no reason to be finite).

You'd terminate it from outside, either when the operation succeeds, so the example loop should more properly be something along the lines of:

    for _ in backoff():
        try:
            c = connect_to_a_thing()
            break
        except ConnectionError:
            pass # retry

or you'd use composition to e.g. stop after a set number of tries:

    for _ in itertools.islice(backoff(), 5):
        # do stuff

most likely a combination of both.