How do I know if a generator is empty from the start?

Suggestion:

def peek(iterable):
    try:
        first = next(iterable)
    except StopIteration:
        return None
    return first, itertools.chain([first], iterable)

Usage:

res = peek(mysequence)
if res is None:
    # sequence is empty.  Do stuff.
else:
    first, mysequence = res
    # Do something with first, maybe?
    # Then iterate over the sequence:
    for element in mysequence:
        # etc.

The simple answer to your question: no, there is no simple way. There are a whole lot of work-arounds.

There really shouldn't be a simple way, because of what generators are: a way to output a sequence of values without holding the sequence in memory. So there's no backward traversal.

You could write a has_next function or maybe even slap it on to a generator as a method with a fancy decorator if you wanted to.