20 years of Django and me

I saw that it's Django's 20 year birthday today (via Simon Willison). Wow, that's hard to believe, but also, I know it all too well. My own career parallels Django's history.

Back in 2005, I was about a year into my first real professional career. I was what we called at the time a "webmaster." I ran the web site for the library systems of Auburn University. I had been programming in Python for a little over a year and had fallen in love with the language. Then I found Django as it was open sourced. It so immediately matched my mental model of programming for the web in Python that I started using it everywhere I could - small sites at the library and my own personal sites.

That work lead me to a deeper connection in the Python and Django communities, which lead me to meet Rob Curley, which lead me to the Washington Post, which ultimately really started my love of working in the publishing and media industries. Now here I am 20 years later, still doing web development, still loving Python, and still working in media, entertainment, and publishing. I don't use Django as much anymore, as my work these days is focused more on AWS and infrastructure, but it's influence on me cannot be overstated.

Cheers, Django! Here's to 20 years more. Carry on!