Python suitability

[Tom Culliton]

In article <38556449.903DA931 at iqsoft.hu>,
Nemeth Miklos  <nemeth at iqsoft.hu> wrote:
>>       From:
>>            bobyu5 at mailcity.com
>> I wonder whether you have enough developers who are proficient with
>> Python and all the other new technologies you want to use - Python is
>> good, but it isn't a panacea,
>
>How many time (days or weeks) do you think is needed for a good C++
>programmer to become a good Python programmer?

Maybe I need to write white paper or a FAQ wizard entry on this so I
can just post the URL every time this comes up.

Learning python is very quick and easy, especially for developers with
experience in more than one computer language.  Typically it takes
about a day to learn the basics, and a week to get quite comfortable.
Developers can be productive with it from the first day.  Tutoring
helps, since there are a handful of minor conceptual issues which are
a bit unusual (e.g. - how "assignment" and "variables" really work),
and learning to use the builtin types and the libraries is easier
given a few helpful nudges.

This is based on having taught Python to around a dozen people.  In
most cases it has simply been a matter of pointing them at the
tutorial and answering questions while they learned it themselves,
rather than actually sitting down and teaching.  In the cases where I
actually walked them through the basics it went even faster.

My buddy Dan was the first person I taught Python to after learning it
myself.  He had a data migration problem that he needed to solve, and
I suggested trying Python.  Over the course of an afternoon we sat
down together and wrote a first cut that worked and Dan learned Python
by example.  He then was able to pick up the ball and run with it
himself, with the occasional answer to a question, or clearing up a
misunderstanding, and a few informal reviews.  Suggestions like "it
would be much easier if you used a dictionary there" or "why don't you
make a class/module out of that?" where my biggest inputs to the
evolving design.  By the end of the next day he had a full featured
"prototype".  By the end of the week Dan wasn't asking questions any
more and came up with some stuff that was really dynamite.

Granted Dan is a very bright guy, but his experience with Python has
proven to be fairly repeatable.  Even just pointing CS new grads at
the tutorial and giving them some examples has proven workable on
about the same time table.