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> A good developer will be able to deliver value regardless of the language they’ve used before. This is true, but more in the long term. If I hire a brillian
by felideon 14y ago
> A good developer will be able to deliver value regardless of the language they’ve used before.
This is true, but more in the long term. If I hire a brilliant and experienced .NET guy for my python team, sure he'll pick it up quickly and achieve some sort of productivity until he's up to par on PEP8 and idiomatic python. But I feel there are many cases where companies are looking for someone with experience in a specific language/framework in order to 'hit the ball running' aside from the usual getting-their-feet-wet with the codebase, learning the business, and other mythical man month issues.
[Edited for clarity.]
- RTigger 14y agoI'd argue the short and long term gains of this approach. If you hire someone who's really good at Python, you're going to get good quality out of the gate from them. But if they're not a good fit for your company or team and/or if they're not passionate about what they do, you might be damaging progress or performance in the long run. In that case I'd take a .NET developer willing to become a good Python developer over a Python developer who's there to collect a paycheque anyday. That being said, if you can find a great Python developer who is also passionate and a good fit, you've hit the jackpot!
- tokipin 14y agothe distance between knowing 0 Python and being proficient in Python shouldn't be more than 2 weeks, and the distance from 0 to "idiomatic" shouldn't be more than 3-4 weeks... and these are generous timeframes. most programming languages are very simple and i'd question whether even 1 month is going to make a difference, especially when i see companies having the same unfilled positions month after month