error handling in user input: is this natural or just laborious

[sam]

a huge amount to think about there. special thanks to james for taking
the time to make such   detailed responses. the problem is that even
though nested loops and the like place a heavy analytical burden on the
programmer (i.e. me) as he tries to remember what does what,
conceptualizing a program as a collection of classes and functions tied
together with a minimal amount of code brings to bear what is, at the
moment, an even greater burden.

my gut feeling is that, over time (as james said was true in his own
case), and with practice, the relative weights of these two burdens
change so that the procedural approach becomes easier to adopt, and its
benefits of readability and maintainability easier to enjoy. fingers
crossed...

i will continue coding the monte carlo machine until it does what i
want in more or less clumsy fashion, and might put it up here if it
feels like it would be of interest.

thanks again,

sam