Coding Django (Python) in a PHP driven Site

I have a client who has a course-management online tool written explicitly in PHP.

He has hired me to do some work on the site. What the work is I'm not clear yet but I'm assuming it开发者_StackOverflow will be an addon to the existing site and not require any modification of the existing PHP code.

Since I am more familiar with Django I plan on coding these new addons in Django and integrating it with PHP.

Is this a wise move or will it cause issues in the foreseeable future. Will the code still be manageable by future developers and what strain (resource-wise) will it have on the Apache server?

Other options I have are

1. Do the addons in PHP (don't know php too well)
2. Redo the site in django completely (don't think client will pay for this)

Thanks for your input

I wouldn't do this, as you'll create a maintenance headache for the client. When they need later modifications to the site, two technologies will need to be understood, rather than just the one.

Additionally, if there are common headers/footers/page components/authentication, you'll have to reimplement them all in your Django site.

PHP isn't that hard to learn, and it's got more examples online than just about any other language known to man.

As far as your server load question goes - it's probably not going to make much difference to have a few python processes running alongside the existing PHP. Besides, RAM is cheap!