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Is learning Python "extraordinary"?

Peter Hansen peter at engcorp.com
Sun Dec 30 00:59:41 EST 2001 
Sheila King wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 29 Dec 2001 18:51:34 -0500, Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com> wrote
> in comp.lang.python in article <3C2E5706.5880983E at engcorp.com>:
> 
> > I'm afraid not.  All the developers I've hired in the last
> > two years took about a week to become productive with Python
> > after being exposed to it for the first time.  Of course,
> > maybe they're *all* extraordinary!
> 
> And these developers you hired were high school students applying for
> admission to college?

Uh, no actually. :-)

I think my perspective is somewhat tainted from being one of the
freaks (back then) who was rather self-taught.  By the end of
high school I knew BASIC, C, APL, 6502 assembly, and others.
By *no* means exceptional compared to many of the real wizards 
of the industry, but I think it means it didn't occur to me
that high school students of today might not already know 
several programming languages.  At least those applying for
MIT. :)

It is still my opinion that a bright person who has learned 
several computer languages can learn Python enough to start 
working on non-trivial tasks with not much more than a week
of learning, but that opinion is based solely on observation
of a dozen perhaps quite bright people doing just that.

-- 
----------------------
Peter Hansen, P.Eng.
peter at engcorp.com
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