I just started a new job a couple months ago at a small company where I am curre
ID: 649466 • Letter: I
Question
I just started a new job a couple months ago at a small company where I am currently leading all development efforts present and future. I personally have years of experience in software design and development from mostly Java but also a .NET perspective. I picked up .NET later in my career with great ease and required literally no training to hit the ground running, and on top of that it helped me to truly grasp and appreciate the universality of many best practices and common themes by seeing two different perspectives to solving the same problem.
My boss has a startup company on the side, and without divulging too much information, he had a need of a moderately sophisticated web application that integrates into Google Maps to build routes.
He contracted out the web application to which they overpromised, majorly underdelivered, and ran over the deadline, he is currently in a fight to try and recover at least some of the money he invested. He has the source code for the site as it is right now but has a laundry list of things he would like fixed and added before he goes live with it.
He asked me if I would like to do this on the side for some extra cash but the problem is that the site was written in Python using Django, which I have no experience in whatsoever. I told him that I am really not the best person for this because I no virtually nothing about Python or Django and would have to learn it from scratch. I feel it wouldn't be fair for me to bill him hourly for my time if I am using that time learning a language and platform.
Based on the summary of my experience level how difficult or how much time would you guess it would take for me to pick this up? If you think its a waste of time could anybody recommend a suggestion for where to find experienced Python web developers? Money is a concern for him right now so he doesn't have the biggest budget anymore.
Thanks for your suggestions!
Explanation / Answer
Python is about as easy to learn as a language could be, which is one of the main selling points of the language. As someone that is very experienced in OO languages, you are in a great position to start. The only fundamental differences between Python and Java/C# are
I understand why you feel that you are not the best man for the job, and you may not make as much progress in your first week as others. On the other hand, your boss trusts you, and he's just been burned by some untrustworthy folks that knew Python better than you.
If you are worried about abusing your bosses trust, offer to give him N hours pro bono. (You decide what N is.) At the end of that time you can decide if you are worth the hourly rate. In the worst case, you will have a much better sense of Python/Django at the end of that time.