Difficulty Finding Python Developers

[Peter Hansen]

Lothar Scholz wrote:

> Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com> wrote in message news:<407D6269.3090909 at engcorp.com>...
> 
>>Paul Morrow wrote:
>>Don't hire "Python programmers".  I successfully staffed a team
>>with over twenty five developers over the last five years, without
>>once hiring anyone who was a "Python programmer".  I did make an
> 
> There is a difference between a long term development team and a three
> month milestone programm task. In the later case you must hire an
> experienced python programmer - if possible.

Nonsense!  At least, not necessarily...  I suppose I can imagine
projects which are such that you absolutely have to hire someone
with detailed knowledge of a particular library (let's say Twisted)
or programming style (threading).  On the other hand, they are
not likely to have estimated such a project at three months, or
they would be planning just to outsource it so they could see
the results before deciding how effective it was to use Python.

Most such short projects, in any general purpose language, should be
doable by very experienced programmers even if they are not initially
familiar with the language, IMHO and in my experience.  I don't
think I've ever chosen to hire someone new just for their language
experience for a trial project rather than have an existing,
trusted, capable employee learn enough of the language to do the
job instead.

-Peter