My pre-history with Plone

In the late 1990s I was working at a job doing a mix of [Foxpro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxpro) development, windows system administration, and help desk. I enjoyed the Foxpro development (laugh if you will) and despised the other stuff. So I was always looking for work in other places where I could be doing pure development. However, lacking much work experience at that time, or knowledge of other programming languages, or a college degree, that made switching positions really hard.

Well, one day, probably in 1999, I stumbled across a job opportunity down in [Fredericksburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredericksburg,_Virginia). I I got an email inviting me down for an interview for [Zope Corporation](https://www.zope.com/), or maybe its predecessor. The job meant working with an obscure language called [Python](https://python.org) and a web based development system called [Zope](https://zope2.zope.org/). Python seemed pretty interesting, and doing development through the browser seemed fascinating. I even looked up some articles on [Yahoo](https://yahoo.com) (this was before [Google](https://google.com) and [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org)).

Alas, I did not take the job. Python seemed too different and obscure and I was already stuck in the closet with Foxpro. Fredericksburg would have involved a move from the Washington, DC area and my ex-wife and I were even then scraping the bottom of the barrel for money. We lived on the metro, lacking a vehicle between us, so just getting down to Fredericksburg was nigh impossible. So I stayed with Foxpro, eventually finding work in a few other languages before finding my current home in Python in 2005.

In an alternative history had I interviewed and been hired for the Python/Zope job I might have worked with [Guido van Rossum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum) during his tenure at Zope Corp! I might still be deeply entrenched with Zope and subsequently [Plone](https://plone.org). [My linux skills would be much better](https://pydanny.blogspot.com/2010/01/learn-something-new-every-year.html). Fredericksburg would be my home, not Arlington so I probably would not be working for NASA right now. I would have never founded [NOVA-Django](https://www.meetup.com/NOVA-django). Finally, the armies of Iceland would have conquered the world.

A very different universe indeed.

Next: My history with Plone