Little bite background: I joined a software company three years ago after graduated with art degree. It is fair to say I had not touched any code and never thought of that program thing before I joined the software company.
At the software company I dabbled into HTML, CSS, JS and SQL, and it turned out learning those languages were not so hard at all. I lean these languages just for developing apps or web site to see how it works, not for the sack of money or career. I just simply curious, and when I play with those language it makes me fell good, very good. I have built my own static web site, and now I am directing our web developers. now I want to lean something more powerful which could help me understand how dynamic web site works
Hanks to SO, I lean that Python is a very good language for people like me, and I spend couple of months to read and write some simple code when I get home from work. Printing “hello world” or slicing data or writing if a then b if c then d does not give me any felling of achievement. That is why I have picked Django up, which so far is more interesting than Python. I have wrote poll app, blog, photo app etc. by following tutorials.
As I expected, now I feel my python knowledge is limited and it hinders my further explore.
I need your help!
RECAP
No CS background, just arts
Do not have much time, have to work more than 8 hours
Just want to lean web development
Medium knowledge of JS and SQL, good command of HTML and CSS.
It’s a great choice. I might even argue it’s a great way to learn python, because the documentation for Django is so amazing, and the path to progress so clear-cut and defined, that it keeps things interesting as well as structured.
I learned python on django, with no python/CS background as well. At first, I couldn’t tell the difference between python and django 🙂 I say the fit is even better with some experience with HTML/CSS/JS/SQL, as that’s ultimately what you are producing with Django.
Learning Python is a rather open ended idea, and the applications of that knowledge require much more understanding than using a framework to build highly functional code that’s at first, mostly the framework doing the work and perhaps a few lines of your own code.
Update: to adress your time problem and your direct goal of learning web development beyond static HTML/CSS, I can’t think of anything faster than running django (particularly with your background): http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/
There are python web frameworks where you can launch a page, including installation, in about 10 total lines of code but none will match the docs of django.
I think the alternatives won’t be a good tool to learn python but a useful tool once you’re comfortable with python.