My Django project deadline went whizzing past. I was stressed about it and have postponed my time off work until I get more of it finished, but I'm less worried now.

Two coders for 5 weeks turned out to be me for five weeks and the other guy for half that because he had a couple of weeks off, and as of now (8 days after the original deadline) the client still hasn't given me any of the text for the site or signed off on the mock-up graphics, and has changed the spec more than once. That's mostly why I don't stress anymore. It's actually how most projects seem to go - the clients demand instant results and then fail to care anyway. What I feel bad about is saying "yes" when asked if it was going to be finished on time. If I could go back in time, I'd say, "yes, provided you don't change anything and I get all the resources I need".

Regardless of whether this project is going to be successful or not, I've learned a lot. I am now happy working in python - I've made progress on re-writing a game in python for my own amusement and played around with some existing desktop apps - and still loving django. I've rewritten my django code a couple of times after forehead-smacking moments when I realised I was being far too complicated in my methods and have got to the stage where I am actually pretty pleased with myself.

Where I've gone back and used PHP while maintaining other sites I've found myself just wanting to get the work out the way so I can get back to python. I'm such a fanboy now.
There is one big PHP project I inherited that I worked on for about 10 months which I might end up continuing after this django app is finished, but oh god I hope not.

What else have I learned? I've learned that cheesy 80s metal played too loud makes me much more productive. Hold on, I knew that already. I've learned nothing!