Noob question: Is all this typecasting normal?

[r]

> There needs to be a "user_io" or "sanitize" module in the standard
> library to take care of this stuff.
[snip]

+1
You are sooo right. You know, it is easy to forget about such things
after you learn a language, i have written my own input logic, but i
remember my __init__ days with python now and the learning curve.

Every new user will makes much use of raw_input()[or input 3.0] and
has to climb this same little hill every time, you and i do it as
second nature. A small module like you describe would be a great
addition to the standard library, and heck, i would even use it :)