Andrew Chalkley
Treehouse Guest Teacher
Portland, OR
I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien, I'm an Englishman in Portland. All of my professional life I've worked with computers online. I'm a polyglot programmer and like using the right tools for the job. You can find me in most places @chalkers.
Topics & Specialties
Courses & Workshops I've Taught
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Introducing JavaScript
Learn the fundamentals of programming by building a JavaScript video game. This fun, exploratory course teaches you basic concepts like variables, values, conditional statements and functions by interactively playing with code while creating a game.
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Callback Functions in JavaScript
Callback functions are a foundational concept in JavaScript. Callbacks are used in timers, user interaction events, loading data from a server and used in Node.js. Whether you're a budding front-end or back-end developer, callbacks are everywhere!
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Express Basics
Learn how to use Express.js to build dynamic websites on the Node.js platform. In the process, you'll learn some fundamental HTTP concepts that you can apply to any other framework!
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6 minWorkshop
Practice Simple WHERE Clauses with SQL
In this workshop we'll practice simple WHERE clauses.
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4 minWorkshop
Practice Column Selection and Aliasing with SQL
In this practice session we'll cover selecting columns and aliasing them.
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10 minWorkshop
Code Coverage with Istanbul
Code coverage is the development practice in seeing how much of your code is covered by tests. We'll use the Node.js module Istanbul in this workshop to illustrate code coverage in Node.js projects.
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Build an Alexa Skill
In this course, you'll learn how to build your own Alexa skill. You'll create an interactive term dictionary for the Alexa Voice Service for devices like the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot and Amazon Tap. You'll be able to ask Alexa a question with your voice, and have Alexa respond with a definition of a word. By the end of this course you'll be ready to submit your skill for certification and published for other Alexa users to enable – all with no prior experience with programming.
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Angular Basics
Get started with Angular, a front end framework for building robust, cross-platform, client-side applications. In this course you'll learn how to configure your environment, install dependencies, and get up and running with an Angular application. By the end of this course you'll be able to build your own Angular application. This course teaches the basics of Angular, versions 2 and later. For Angular 1, or AngularJS, please see our AngularJS (https://teamtreehouse.com/library/angularjs-3) course.
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13 minWorkshop
Debugging Node Applications with Google Chrome
Debugging Node.js is not limited to using console.log, you can use more powerful tools like Google Chrome's DevTools Inspector.
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Node.js Basics
In this course we will create two command line applications using the popular server-side JavaScript platform Node.js. We'll be creating an application to retrieve a student's Treehouse profile information and weather information based on a zip code.
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14 minWorkshop
Defining Variables with let and const
For most of JavaScript's life, there's been only one way to create, or "declare", a variable: the var keyword. In the latest version of JavaScript there are two new ways: const and let.
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8 minWorkshop
Introducing Arrow Function Syntax
ECMAScript 2015 has been widely adopted by all modern browsers. This means we can use a more concise way to write functions. In this workshop we'll convert some traditional functions into a more modern syntax.
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13 minWorkshop
JavaScript and the Internet of Things
JavaScript is everywhere. From it's humble beginnings in the browser, to it's renaissance on the server side, Javascript is incredibly popular. This has lead to individuals putting JavaScript runtimes in to embedded electronics. Discover the strategies you can employ with JavaScript enabled IoT projects.
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13 minWorkshop
Setting Up Travis CI with Node.js
In this workshop we'll show you how to use the Continuous Integration service, Travis CI, to automatically run tests in your Node.js projects.
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13 minWorkshop
Build a Cross-Platform Desktop Application with Electron
Learn how to use Electron to create a desktop application that will run on Windows, macOS and Linux.
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Querying Relational Databases
Building off of previous SQL courses, this course will begin to introduce the student to more complex database concepts. Students will learn to think about data as sets and subsets and practice achieving desired query results via such operations as inner and outer joins, unions and except. They will also be introduced to the concepts of Set Theory and Database Normalization to aid in understanding good query practices.
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44 minWorkshop
OAuth Authentication With Passport
Have you ever wondered how you add social login to your Express.js websites? They all use a protocol called OAuth, and there's an npm module called Passport.js that helps you integrate it in to your Node.js application.
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25 minWorkshop
Exploring JavaScript Conditionals
In this workshop we'll explore alternatives to if..then statements for controlling program flow. Even if you don't end up using them, you will see these forms appear in other code bases, and it's helpful to know how they work.
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22 minWorkshop
Understanding Closures in JavaScript
In this workshop learn how closures are used to preserve data between function calls.
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Build a REST API With Express
REST services are a powerful way of providing functionality over the internet. Not only can they be used as a foundation to build sophisticated web applications, they can also be integrated into any number of other projects, making them the ultimate in modularity and reusability! Instead of having to rebuild an application for several platforms, for example -- iOS, Android, browser, etc -- you can build the back-end once and just add user interfaces as needed. You can build a REST service in many different languages/platforms, but for this course, we will be building one with Express, a popular framework written for Node.js. We will also use Mongoose with MongoDB to persist our data. Let’s get started!
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44 minWorkshop
Using SQL and Node.js with Sequelize
In this workshop we'll use SQL and Node.js together with the popular ORM Sequelize.
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22 minWorkshop
Understanding Promises in JavaScript
Promises were created to help with JavaScript's tendency to rely on nested callbacks. They're implemented in most browsers, so now is an awesome time to get to know them.
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Reporting with SQL
SQL can be used to generate reports and present information on websites. This course covers powerful SQL features in helping you answer more interesting questions about your data.
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12 minWorkshop
Deploy a Node Application to Heroku
Heroku is a git-based, simple to use, hosting platform. You can deploy Ruby, PHP, Java and Python web applications to it in a breeze. But more importantly you can deploy Node.js applications too!
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Modifying Data with SQL
At the heart of a dynamic application is a database. Whether the application is an eCommerce, sports team, social network or a productivity app on your phone the data needs to change over time. In this course we'll take a look at the underpinning SQL statements that are needed for every dynamic application.
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SQL Basics
In SQL Basics we’ll take a look at what databases are and how you can retrieve information from them. Databases can store massive amounts of information to be retrieved at a later date. Databases act as the memory for dynamic web sites or mobile apps.
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14 minWorkshop
Using npm as a Task Runner
There are other popular JavaScript task runners out there, like Grunt and gulp but you may not need it.
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8 minWorkshop
How to Create and Distribute an npm Package
In this Workshop we'll sign up for npm, login in the command line, prepare our package, test our package and distribute it so thousands of other developers can use our code in their projects.
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npm Basics
npm is a command line tool to help you manage Node.js modules and this course will get you up and running with npm.
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43 minWorkshop
Getting Started with TypeScript
Andrew Chalkley shows you how to get up and running with TypeScript, an enhanced version of JavsScript that provides static typing, classes and interfaces. TypeScript compiles to regular JavaScript code so you can write TypeScript code that works in every common JavaScript environment such as browsers and Node.js.
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Object-Oriented JavaScript
Objects in JavaScript are everywhere. Whether you know it or not, you've been using them already. You can use the document object to find HTML elements and modify their contents. You've been using the console to log out values. However, you can make your own objects to organize your own code and do some awesome things. In this course we'll build a couple of projects to get a handle on creating your own objects.
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20 minWorkshop
Using the Geolocation API in JavaScript
Smart devices with GPS common place in todays world. With that being true we can start tapping in to that information to make exciting applications. Developers can get a user's location by using a Geolocation API. In this Workshop, Andrew shows you not only how to find a location but handle all the other gotchas and errors that can occur.
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Build a Simple Dynamic Site with Node.js
Node.js is a versatile platform for building all sorts of applications. In this course, we're going to make a dynamic website that displays a Treehouse student's profile information by creating a server that will dynamically generate content, handle URLs, read from files and build a simple template engine.
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20 minWorkshop
Get Together with Git
Learn how to work on teams with Git.
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jQuery Basics
jQuery Basics covers why you'd want to use jQuery, what it is and how to include it in your projects. You'll build several projects over the course to give you the confidence to integrate jQuery in your own projects and add that level of flair and interactivity to any site you work on.
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57 minWorkshop
Behavior-Driven Development with Cucumber
Cucumber is a Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) framework that allows you to write out specifications in plain English, allowing all stakeholders in a project to understand what's going on. You'll need to be comfortable with Ruby on Rails to follow along but there are some general principles you can learn about BDD if you're interested.
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