[Replying to myself since there are so many people who think this is silly.] There are many, many people who could be good Python programmers within a week. O

[Replying to myself since there are so many people who think this is silly.] There are many, many people who could be good Python programmers within a week. Obviously a programmer with only C++ or Java experience could not; I only mentioned those languages for contrast, because you wouldn't hire someone to write C++ unless they were already a good C++ programmer. The differences in style between Python and Ruby or Python and Perl, modulo the differences related to the available language features (which enforce themselves, and which account for most of the difference), are on the same scale as style differences between different C++ shops. You expect a good C++ programmer to adapt to the local dialect (assuming he has the technical chops to do so), so why wouldn't you expect a Perl programmer to adapt to Python? There's no way you would pass up a smart Perl or Ruby programmer for a Python job. (Vice-versa is another matter.) As for experience with other tools, looking at Python in that context actually strengthens my point. When you interview a developer, you don't bother asking about build tools, IDEs, SCMs, or testing frameworks unless they're applying to be the local guru. I've never asked a candidate if he knew how to build a .deb package. I've never worried about how much a candidate knows about Eclipse. (Or Jira, or gdb, or cvs.) The cumulative amount of tool-specific knowledge required to do my job dwarfs the complexity of Python, but I really don't bother with that stuff when I'm interviewing somebody for my group. A big technology like Django might be a different question. Django (as much as I've seen of it) seems to be considerably more complicated than Python. I could see wanting to hire a Django developer. But then it's a Django job and not a Python job, except by implication.