[Edu-sig] Re: What do files and exceptions have in common?

[Scott David Daniels]

I have been starting to look over Alan Gauld's python tutorial:
     http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld/
and sent him a comment to the following effect which seems germane here.

When explaining exceptions, it is useful to point out that exceptions
are problems that are caught, not at the source of the mistake, but
at the point where the computer program notices something is amiss.
Usually something the user does wrong looks, initially, like a valid
response that leads to trouble later, but the error reporting starts
when the "leads to trouble later" actually happens.  This lag is what
makes computer error messages seem so inane.

-- 
-- Scott David Daniels
Scott.Daniels at Acm.Org