Python training time (was)

[Alan James Salmoni]

Dear all,

One thing I found great about Python was not so much getting the
working "knowledge" in the first place, but getting up to speed with
new things. With other languages, it would be a long time before it
felt comfortable to use an unfamiliar piece of code or module, whereas
with Python a quick scan usually  gets the "overall gist", and I'm
away with maybe a quick glance or two at the docs. The code itself
forms great documentation as well, much easier to read than other
languages.

Alan James Salmoni
SalStat Statistics
http://salstat.sunsite.dk

"Delaney, Timothy C (Timothy)" <tdelaney at avaya.com> wrote in message news:<mailman.1044330911.4840.python-list at python.org>...
> > From: Michele Simionato [mailto:mis6 at pitt.edu]
> > 
> > Being honest, I would say that one cannot *never* claim having
> > mastered
> > *every* aspect of Python (or any other serious programming language). 
> > I think that Guido himself would not claim he masters *every* aspect
> > of Python.
> 
> Indeed. I believe he has a fit every time he even vaguely considers 
> looking at Tim Peters' list.sort() code <0.5 wink>.
> 
> > I would say the time needed to have a working knowledge of Python is
> > is *much* smaller than the corresponding time for C++. Much, much
> > smaller.
> > How much smaller depends on the person and on the job you have to do,
> > but I think a *very* conservative estimate is at least half the time.
> > Also, I would not be surprised to hear somebody claiming he can learn
> > Python
> > five-six times faster than C++.
> 
> Easily 5-6 times faster to learn Python than C++ ... but OTOH I knew a 
> lot more programming languages when I learned Python than when I learned 
> C++. I was productive with Python inside of a week. I was writing 
> Pythonic code (which is more important - I had learned the most 
> important idioms) inside of 3 months.
> 
> However, having learned C++ over 10 years ago, I claim to *not* know 
> large parts of it at all well (or even at all). OTOH, I feel that I am 
> comfortable with every aspect of Python that I have looked at, and 
> that's the entire core language and a very large part of the standard 
> library.
> 
> Tim Delaney