For me, it was Forth, way back at the end of the eighties! Yes, almost prehistory. But I was an un-degree-ed programmer, unable to afford college, self-taught C and Assembly, and not enough experience to open doors. I was invited to work in software engineering, my dream job by the engineering manager of my company, but...I had to do it in Forth, and the company was willing to teach me. The position was my start into embedded systems programming, and man did I learn a lot! Like, just how easy C and Assembly language REALLY could be! But it was a good journey, and though I never coded again in Forth, my fear of not being able to learn C and Assembly proficiently disappeared... ;-)