Difficulty Finding Python Developers

[Roy Smith]

python at rcn.com (Raymond Hettinger) wrote:
> With a C++ code, it is critical for your programmers to have years of
> C++ experience.  However, with Python, experienced programmers can get
> up to speed over a weekend.

I would put it slightly differently.

With Python, you can learn a useful subset of the language in a weekend.  
Control flow, statement syntax, and how to define and use functions.  
Assuming you're already familiar with the concepts of classes and 
exceptions (and just need to learn how python implements them), those 
are probably another weekend.

What's really cool is that once you've learned some basic subset of the 
language, it's easy to start using that subset to write useful and 
correct programs.  They may not be as efficient or sophisticated as they 
might be if you understood some more advanced topic, but they'll work.

I think that's one of the things that sets Python apart from C++.  It's 
difficult to know a subset of C++ and do anything useful (unless you 
consider C to be a subset of C++).  Memory management is pervasive.  
Inheritence rules are in your face all the time.  If you declare a 
constructor incorrectly, even if you only have a single constructor, 
you'll never be able to make sense of the compiler errors unless you 
understand polymorphism.  And so on.

A novice Python programmer may be limited in the things they can do, but 
what they can do, they can do well.  A novice C++ programmer is 
dangerous.