diff --git a/Doc/howto/sockets.rst b/Doc/howto/sockets.rst
index 3cba020..1928c2a 100644
--- a/Doc/howto/sockets.rst
+++ b/Doc/howto/sockets.rst
@@ -204,8 +204,7 @@
            while totalsent < MSGLEN:
                sent = self.sock.send(msg[totalsent:])
                if sent == 0:
-                   raise RuntimeError, \
-                       "socket connection broken"
+                   raise RuntimeError("socket connection broken")
                totalsent = totalsent + sent
 
        def myreceive(self):
@@ -213,8 +212,7 @@
            while len(msg) < MSGLEN:
                chunk = self.sock.recv(MSGLEN-len(msg))
                if chunk == '':
-                   raise RuntimeError, \
-                       "socket connection broken"
+                   raise RuntimeError("socket connection broken")
                msg = msg + chunk
            return msg