How to sell Python to your boss?

[Mike Steed]

My take would be:

a) Argue that you could quickly develop a prototype in Python and then
rewrite it in C once you have it working (although in reality you have no
intention of doing this).

b) Once it is done, you have a decent chance of convincing him that the
maintenance will be much easier in Python -- including the time for other
developers to learn the language -- if you compare some of the clean, easy
Python code to its equivalent C ugliness (sounds like string parsing is one
good candidate).

And then buy him a copy of _Learning Python_ to give to the future
maintainers.  They won't be sorry.

-Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: Petri Mikael Kuittinen [mailto:eye at niksula.hut.fi]
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 1999 10:54 AM
To: python-list at python.org
Subject: How to sell Python to your boss?


I proposed an interesting idea to my employer for my final thesis.

My proposed final thesis includes:
- a prototype implementation of networked multi-player video gambling
game (which also has a single-player mode)
- a design of a network protocol to allow this and automated testing
of the game (including several automated test player programs which
have different kind of AI). This protocol and test system is designed
so that it can easily be expanded to handle any sort of gambling game

Most of the work is design, documentation and programming a
rudimentary, but easy-to-use, GUI for the multi-player game. My boss
otherwise agreed with my idea ("it would be really useful..."), but he
doesn't want me to do the prototype implementation using Python. He
said I must use a program language that all the other programmers in
our R&D department understand. Well, that leaves only one choice: C

[snip]