Prerequisites

The cccs site is a Django site. To work with it, basic familiarity with Git, GitHub, Django, Python and virtualenv are assumed.

Our working environment is Ubuntu (currently 14.04 LTS). Python comes pre-installed in Ubuntu (as it does on most Linux systems) and we are currently using 2.7.8 but any 2.7.x will do fine.

These links may help:

Link	Note	Time
The Git Book	Read the first three chapters - experiment as you go!	1h
GitHub Issues	Just a quick read	10m
Basic Python	skim this but experiment as you go. Stop after regular expressions.	2h
Basic Django	fun!	2h
Python Virtual Environments	very little to these but they are very handy for avoiding all sorts of stress. Just use them all the time you work with Python.	10m

For Python and Django, it is important to work through the tutorials so that the knowledge sticks. Learning by doing is the only effective method. I would eschew the online 'try it' stuff and use your Ubuntu environment - you can simply type 'python' and hit enter for an interactive shell.

Create a Git repository and a virtualenv within which you can do the tutorials.