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Meet one of our newest teachers Ken Alger! Come see what he's cooking up for y'all.
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Hi, I'm Craig, and welcome to the Treehouse Show.
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The Treehouse Show is our conversation with the Treehouse community.
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[SOUND] In this episode, we'll be getting to know
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one of our newest Treehouse teachers, Ken Alger.
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[SOUND] >> Thanks so much for
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being on the show Ken.
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>> Glad to be here.
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>> I was wondering, could you tell me how you got started in technology?
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>> Sure, so I was about, I don't know, 10 or 11, we got in school,
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we had a pet computer, an old Commodore pet computer.
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Tape drive >> Okay.
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>> And really, by today's standards, it was archaic, almost.
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>> Right.
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>> But we would play around with that in school and then we got computers at
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home and I would send it home and program- >> What would you program in?
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>> Programmed in BASIC.
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>> Nice. >> 10 go to 20, that sort of stuff.
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>> Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday.
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>> Yeah, and
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I wrote my own word processing programs >> Wow.
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>> And database stuff back then.
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>> In BASIC?
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>> In BASIC.
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>> Wow.
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>> Vic 20 and Commodore 64.
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>> Vic 20 needs plugged into the TV?
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>> Yeah, >> Yeah.
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>> It's crazy, and then we got an IBM compatible PC,
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which was supposed to be 100% compatible and was more like 70% compatible.
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But played around with that for a long time through high school, and
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then kind of changed careers and lost interest at that point.
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>> Okay, where'd you head?
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>> I went into politics of all places.
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>> Politics?
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>> Yep. >> Wow.
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>> So I was an economics major in college,
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and politics was kind of my thing at that point.
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>> Okay.
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>> And then all my jobs that I had, I was kind of the computer guy.
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>> Okay. >> So computers have always been kind of
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party of my- >> Couldn't shake it.
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>> Yeah, and then, so you fast forward, more years than I'd like to admit.
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>> [LAUGH] >> I was looking for a career change, and
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I found Treehouse.
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>> Cool, yeah, that's right, that's right.
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I remember actually, one of my first courses, you were, you helped.
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>> Yeah.
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>> You helped QA, one of my first courses.
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>> That's probably true.
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>> And it was impressive.
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>> Thank you.
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>> And we talked about it, we talked about it around the office and you QA'd,
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>> 30 some courses.
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>> Yeah, cuz we send those tweets out and you responded to one of them.
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And then you became a moderator after that, right?
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>> I was a moderator for awhile, and
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then the job opened up right around the time that the tech degrees started.
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And got hired on to be a tech degree success coordinator.
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>> Awesome.
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>> And then did that for awhile, and
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just back in the beginning of this year, got hired on as a teacher.
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>> Awesome, we are so glad to have you and you are all over the place though, right?
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You are like a polyglot.
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What's a polyglot?
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>> Kind of one that knows a lot of different languages.
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>> Right, so I know, for students watching at home, learning another language might
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seem like that's kind of daunting, cuz they're just starting now.
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So do you have advice for that?
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Is there anything about being a polyglot there that you have?
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>> Google's your friend?
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>> Okay. [LAUGH]
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>> It's challenging to keep everything
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straight, right?
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I mean, you jump from, say, Java, right, and into Python,
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and you don't need semicolons in Python.
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>> Right. And
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Java isn't particular about indentation, for example.
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>> Right. >> So those types of things you pick up
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relatively quickly, and then you remember them.
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But other than that, what method you use for date time in Python versus date
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time in Java, Google's your friend, if you don't remember it.
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>> Okay, that's cool.
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Do you have, is that hard to do, to learn two, kind of simultaneously?
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>> Probably, but it's doable and I find there's so
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many similarities between languages that learning multiple languages,
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once you've kind of picked up a lot of the basics,
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it's not that big of a challenge, and big of a stretch.
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Move on to your other ones.
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>> Yeah, cuz they're all kind of the same, under the hood.
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>> More or less, it's mostly syntax.
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Right. >> Once you get kind of the fundamentals
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down, of what the method is, what the function is, what the difference between
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methods and functions are, classes and that sort of thing.
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>> So that's interesting, what's driving you to learn all those different
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languages, cuz that's quite a bit?
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>> Yeah, it is, I think the big driving force for
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me personally was just kind of rounding up my knowledge of stuff.
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Two, and I mean, honestly it would be going through JavaScript and
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I would see, hey, this job looks really interesting but
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it requires some Java knowledge on top of that.
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So let's take a little detour and learn some Java and then-.
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>> That's right.
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>> There was some Python type stuff and what not that came about.
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And a lot of it, it's all, I mostly concentrated on back
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end technologies, so not so much the design and what not.
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>> Right.
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>> And they're all, like I said before, they're all kinda intermixed and
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very similar.
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So just kinda what features of each language
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driving the different things that we can do with them.
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>> Great, what are you teaching now here rest of the Treehouse?
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>> So I've taught a couple of courses on data visualization, and
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kinda data science stuff, and those were in Python.
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And now I'm on Android, and some Android stuff, probably go back to Python,
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maybe touch some Java.
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>> Nice.
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>> Bouncing around.
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>> You are all over, that's great.
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>> I am.
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>> Great, super success story too, that's awesome.
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So what is something that the students who watch your courses won't
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know about you just by watching your courses?
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>> Well, not maybe by watching my courses, but
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I have had my fingers in one of Meliana's PHP courses.
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>> Really.
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>> Early on when I was first hired she needed some help doing some recipes,
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I used to be a chef.
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>> You used to be a chef.
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>> A chef, yep, I went to culinary school, back in that long, long time ago period.
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>> Okay. >> Went to culinary school,
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and was a chef for several years and yeah.
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>> How long did you do the chef thing for?
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>> Three or four years.
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So I went to culinary school, then had kids.
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It's not really conducive to a family lifestyle, but, yeah, it was a lot of fun.
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>> Are you a good cook?
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>> You could ask my wife.
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>> [LAUGH] Can you make me something?
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>> Well, we can go take a look and see.
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>> Sure, let's go.
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>> All right.
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>> So it's a kitchen, we got stuff.
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>> Okay. >> We should have,
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there's some Goldfish crackers, and peanut butter pretzels.
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There's salt, we got salt and there's.
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>> Salt, honey.
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>> Honey and tea, there's some, I don't know.
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>> Okay. >> Maybe there, let's look in the fridge.
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>> Fridge, yeah.
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Tortillas.
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>> There's some tortillas.
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Hey, there's a beer.
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You made this.
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Didn't you make this?
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>> Yeah, I did, I made that but- >> It's a Treehouse beer.
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>> Yeah, I have an idea for something we can make here.
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>> Yeah?
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>> Yeah. >> All right.
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[MUSIC]
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>> Wow, this looks great Ken.
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What is this?
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>> Fish tacos.
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Wanna try them?
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>> Yeah, let's get a bite here.
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>> Too cheesy?
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>> Thanks for watching the Treehouse Show.
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To get in touch with the show, reach out to me on Twitter, or
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shoot an email to show@teamtreehouse.com.
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We'd love to hear from you.
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There was something pretty fishy about those tacos.
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[MUSIC]
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