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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]