Looking for Python programmers--where to search?

[Alex Martelli]

"Courageous" <jkraska1 at san.rr.com> wrote in message
news:3998C541.4FC15982 at san.rr.com...
>
> > My company does web applications in Python, and we're growing like nuts.
> > Despite (or because of) being in the SF Bay Area, we're having a hard
> > time finding Python coders.
>
> Your mistake is trying to find Python coders. That's not the
> least bit necessary.

Not _necessary_ (as you say, training competent programmers in Python is
not a big investment), but surely _convenient_.  A couple weeks' or months'
worth of Python practice can greatly enhance a person's competence with
Python usage, and the quality of the Python code he or she produces as
well as the speed with which he or she produces it; and, as for any other
tool (programming language, in particular) a shop would be best placed if
it had at least one guru-level (aka wizard-level) person, a "language
lawyer"
who's really familiar with every little dark nook and cranny one doesn't
normally go into, to advise others at need.

In other words -- it works roughly like every other technology, albeit at
greatly compressed timescales: with Python, one can start producing
useful code after 2-3 hours' training (rather than a week or so for C++),
be at very good competence after about a month (rather than a year),
become a guru in 6 months to a year (rather than 4 to 8 years).  Most
programming languages are somewhere between Python and C++ on
this scale, by the way (Perl is one of the few that might require more
time than C++ to get to real guru-hood, though less time than it for
lesser levels; a peculiar but understandable phenomenon...).


Alex