1 00:00:00,150 --> 00:00:01,156 Hi, I'm Craig. 2 00:00:01,156 --> 00:00:02,577 Welcome to the Treehouse show. 3 00:00:02,577 --> 00:00:08,454 The Treehouse show is our weekly conversation with the Treehouse community. 4 00:00:08,454 --> 00:00:10,514 [MUSIC] 5 00:00:10,514 --> 00:00:14,990 The annual Python conference, PyCon is happening right now in Portland. 6 00:00:14,990 --> 00:00:16,960 What do you say we go on a field trip? 7 00:00:16,960 --> 00:00:18,670 No permission slip required. 8 00:00:18,670 --> 00:00:20,429 Let's go chat with some Pythonistas. 9 00:00:21,510 --> 00:00:22,841 Hi, can I get your name please? 10 00:00:22,841 --> 00:00:24,042 >> My name is Kojo Adresa. 11 00:00:24,042 --> 00:00:26,797 >> Thursday Bram, B-R-A-M >> My name is Atul. 12 00:00:26,797 --> 00:00:27,649 >> Leo. 13 00:00:27,649 --> 00:00:28,825 >> Hal. >> Svesden. 14 00:00:28,825 --> 00:00:29,514 >> Jamal Mitchell. 15 00:00:29,514 --> 00:00:30,568 >> My name is Yulan Lin. 16 00:00:30,568 --> 00:00:31,500 >> Rolando. 17 00:00:31,500 --> 00:00:33,974 >> What was your first job? 18 00:00:33,974 --> 00:00:37,610 >> Hm. My first job was when I was 12, probably, 19 00:00:37,610 --> 00:00:39,629 delivering papers. 20 00:00:39,629 --> 00:00:42,690 >> I have had many first jobs. 21 00:00:42,690 --> 00:00:44,340 I worked a lot in the family business. 22 00:00:44,340 --> 00:00:46,900 I spent an entire summer dressed as a tomato. 23 00:00:46,900 --> 00:00:48,041 >> I worked at Chuck E Cheese. 24 00:00:48,041 --> 00:00:48,813 >> All right. 25 00:00:48,813 --> 00:00:49,872 >> It was rad. 26 00:00:49,872 --> 00:00:53,963 So they start everyone off at the door where like you give everyone a stamp. 27 00:00:53,963 --> 00:00:55,679 And then everyone has to be Chucky for a while. 28 00:00:55,679 --> 00:00:58,400 So I've been the mouse. 29 00:00:58,400 --> 00:01:05,870 >> Late middle school, I was working for a man who owned a bulletin board system. 30 00:01:05,870 --> 00:01:07,480 I was just like a frequent user of it. 31 00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:10,867 I think at that time I actually had my own bulletin board system. 32 00:01:10,867 --> 00:01:14,540 He had like this multi line board system and it needed maintenance. 33 00:01:14,540 --> 00:01:17,232 He had like a normal day job. 34 00:01:17,232 --> 00:01:19,300 He's like a gemologist, I think. 35 00:01:19,300 --> 00:01:22,250 >> My first job was actually industrial engineering. 36 00:01:22,250 --> 00:01:24,970 >> Deliver some paperbacks. 37 00:01:24,970 --> 00:01:26,430 >> Working in a logging industry. 38 00:01:26,430 --> 00:01:29,551 >> First job, I was working at American Reinsurance Company. 39 00:01:29,551 --> 00:01:34,970 >> In a research lab, doing chemistry and chemical synthesis. 40 00:01:34,970 --> 00:01:37,184 >> Now I am a QA specialist, I do QA. 41 00:01:37,184 --> 00:01:39,777 >> Do community organization and management and 42 00:01:39,777 --> 00:01:42,244 then I do a lot of writing about technology. 43 00:01:42,244 --> 00:01:45,463 >> Now I'm a software developer and IT trainer for the University of Texas and 44 00:01:45,463 --> 00:01:48,840 I've taught a couple of Treehouse courses which you may have taken. 45 00:01:48,840 --> 00:01:52,708 >> I currently work for an organization called 18F, they're basically a design and 46 00:01:52,708 --> 00:01:55,442 engineering consultancy within the federal government. 47 00:01:55,442 --> 00:01:57,862 So I'm actually a federal employee. 48 00:01:57,862 --> 00:02:02,352 And yeah, we basically work on a bunch of things to make the government more 49 00:02:02,352 --> 00:02:05,720 effective and efficient, but also more transparent. 50 00:02:05,720 --> 00:02:10,210 All of our stuff is open-source, public domain, on GitHub and stuff. 51 00:02:10,210 --> 00:02:14,410 >> For a developer, mostly playing between being a back end developer and 52 00:02:14,410 --> 00:02:16,640 front end developer. 53 00:02:16,640 --> 00:02:17,980 >> A software engineer. 54 00:02:17,980 --> 00:02:19,130 >> I'm a software engineer. 55 00:02:19,130 --> 00:02:22,910 >> Now I'm a cloud engineer for Cincinnati Bell technology services. 56 00:02:22,910 --> 00:02:25,930 >> I'm currently a data scientist in Houston, Texas. 57 00:02:25,930 --> 00:02:28,738 >> How many languages do you know? 58 00:02:28,738 --> 00:02:32,640 >> I'm probably mostly comfortable with mostly just Python. 59 00:02:32,640 --> 00:02:35,974 I do a little bit of JavaScript, a tiny bit of SQL. 60 00:02:36,985 --> 00:02:39,196 Some HTML and CSS. 61 00:02:39,196 --> 00:02:43,495 >> Well, so no is kind of a complicated term. 62 00:02:43,495 --> 00:02:45,892 So my main language is Python. 63 00:02:45,892 --> 00:02:50,407 I'm heavily involved in PyLadies and that's my one true love. 64 00:02:50,407 --> 00:02:53,373 But I took Java in college. 65 00:02:53,373 --> 00:02:57,308 I have done unholy things toward press themes. 66 00:02:57,308 --> 00:03:01,040 It's kind of like whatever you need to figure out, you do. 67 00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:01,851 So. 68 00:03:01,851 --> 00:03:03,752 >> Honestly, not really that many. 69 00:03:03,752 --> 00:03:06,379 UT is still a lot on a mainframe system, so 70 00:03:06,379 --> 00:03:09,917 I know a language called Natural really, really well. 71 00:03:09,917 --> 00:03:13,920 Which is not really relevant outside of the University of Texas. 72 00:03:13,920 --> 00:03:15,550 I know Python, Django, of course. 73 00:03:15,550 --> 00:03:16,510 And that's what you see me teach. 74 00:03:16,510 --> 00:03:17,890 I know a little bit of JavaScript. 75 00:03:17,890 --> 00:03:19,910 A tiny, tiny bit of Ruby. 76 00:03:19,910 --> 00:03:22,770 But I'm not really a polyglot in the way that I know that a lot of 77 00:03:22,770 --> 00:03:23,570 other people are. 78 00:03:23,570 --> 00:03:25,233 >> Sort of lost count at this point. 79 00:03:25,233 --> 00:03:29,179 I mean, I guess I'm only really good at like two or three. 80 00:03:29,179 --> 00:03:33,598 I mean, I mainly work in Python and JavaScript. 81 00:03:33,598 --> 00:03:37,576 >> I have done a lot of stuff with PHP, but most of my focus is in Python. 82 00:03:37,576 --> 00:03:42,042 But also, I happen to be having different clients working with Ruby on Rails. 83 00:03:42,042 --> 00:03:44,538 >> Okay. >> And of course, you can escape. 84 00:03:44,538 --> 00:03:45,306 Yeah, I was screwed. 85 00:03:45,306 --> 00:03:46,942 >> Four, three or four. 86 00:03:46,942 --> 00:03:48,033 >> More than 20. 87 00:03:48,033 --> 00:03:48,943 >> More than 20? 88 00:03:48,943 --> 00:03:49,732 >> Yeah. 89 00:03:49,732 --> 00:03:51,211 >> I'd say two. 90 00:03:51,211 --> 00:03:54,870 Really just Bash and then Python, that's it. 91 00:03:54,870 --> 00:03:57,277 >> I work with three or four. 92 00:03:57,277 --> 00:03:59,830 I wouldn't say that I'm an expert in any of them. 93 00:03:59,830 --> 00:04:00,860 >> At least four. 94 00:04:00,860 --> 00:04:02,916 I mean, to get through college, at least three. 95 00:04:02,916 --> 00:04:04,920 >> How do you go about learning those languages? 96 00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:06,490 What do you do? 97 00:04:06,490 --> 00:04:08,850 >> Conferences, a lot of Stack Overflow. 98 00:04:08,850 --> 00:04:11,050 There's a lot of really great slack channels and 99 00:04:11,050 --> 00:04:12,940 communities where I can just ask. 100 00:04:12,940 --> 00:04:15,240 And then the meet up community in Houston is really great. 101 00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:16,730 And so kind of just going and 102 00:04:16,730 --> 00:04:18,980 hanging out with friends and learning what they're doing. 103 00:04:18,980 --> 00:04:21,820 >> Books and then some online videos, that kind of thing. 104 00:04:21,820 --> 00:04:24,213 So just sort of depending on what it is. 105 00:04:24,213 --> 00:04:27,413 >> I tend to go just down the rabbit hole on the internet and 106 00:04:27,413 --> 00:04:30,684 start looking and seeing if there's a class I can take or 107 00:04:30,684 --> 00:04:34,310 if there's a blog post I can read >> Or if there's a tutorial or 108 00:04:34,310 --> 00:04:37,540 if somebody has actually already done the thing and it's up on GitHub and 109 00:04:37,540 --> 00:04:42,560 I can just change the labels and the variables and reuse it. 110 00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:45,876 >> Treehouse courses, one of the kind of nice things about being a Treehouse 111 00:04:45,876 --> 00:04:48,453 teacher is I get access to a lot of the Treehouse courses. 112 00:04:48,453 --> 00:04:50,220 So I've been able to do those. 113 00:04:50,220 --> 00:04:53,491 But also Googling stuff, looking at other people's blog posts, and 114 00:04:53,491 --> 00:04:55,790 the kind of walkthroughs that they have posted. 115 00:04:55,790 --> 00:04:59,060 >> I'll watch conference talks while I do the elliptical. 116 00:04:59,060 --> 00:05:00,680 >> How do you keep on picking stuff up? 117 00:05:00,680 --> 00:05:04,670 >> Well, sometimes when I'm starting something, 118 00:05:04,670 --> 00:05:09,450 I try to see a few videos or test applications. 119 00:05:09,450 --> 00:05:11,980 So I have used Treehouse for that. 120 00:05:11,980 --> 00:05:16,830 Normally I spent, when I used to be more like a back end developer, 121 00:05:16,830 --> 00:05:19,590 but I'm moving to do more and more front end stuff. 122 00:05:19,590 --> 00:05:22,965 >> Right. >> So normally, when learning more about 123 00:05:22,965 --> 00:05:28,095 CSS, I try to read and to see at least one chapter of a few topics. 124 00:05:28,095 --> 00:05:29,474 >> Okay. 125 00:05:29,474 --> 00:05:34,727 So I subscribe to a lot of newsletters. 126 00:05:34,727 --> 00:05:39,696 And I'm so tired of the news or getting that, I think, 127 00:05:39,696 --> 00:05:42,622 comfortable about doing that. 128 00:05:42,622 --> 00:05:46,762 And I think one of the best tricks that I have is actually 129 00:05:46,762 --> 00:05:50,992 asking people what are the top ten books that they have. 130 00:05:50,992 --> 00:05:55,034 Because that way, If you have a book that has stand the time, 131 00:05:55,034 --> 00:05:58,230 normally you have something good in there. 132 00:05:58,230 --> 00:06:01,081 >> Right >> That will give you an advantage over 133 00:06:01,081 --> 00:06:02,334 a lot of people. 134 00:06:02,334 --> 00:06:07,011 And lastly, I think reading the standards. 135 00:06:07,011 --> 00:06:10,873 Not a lot of people try to follow standards, but for example, 136 00:06:10,873 --> 00:06:14,470 I try to keep on like, what is coming to CSS? 137 00:06:14,470 --> 00:06:17,958 And learn it before people actually are using it. 138 00:06:17,958 --> 00:06:19,236 >> Got you. You mean the official standard 139 00:06:19,236 --> 00:06:19,781 documentation. 140 00:06:19,781 --> 00:06:20,636 >> Yeah, yeah. 141 00:06:20,636 --> 00:06:26,015 For example, reading what is expected on the common versions of the language or 142 00:06:26,015 --> 00:06:29,160 coming on the next versions of the framework. 143 00:06:29,160 --> 00:06:33,180 So that way you keep up, you try to be in the future in some ways. 144 00:06:33,180 --> 00:06:34,300 >> That's really clever, that's a great tip. 145 00:06:34,300 --> 00:06:40,270 >> Friend's posts on Twitter or from some website, GitHub News, or some. 146 00:06:40,270 --> 00:06:42,360 >> Once you learn the functional programming, 147 00:06:42,360 --> 00:06:45,420 object oriented, you know, you just follow the same patterns. 148 00:06:45,420 --> 00:06:49,820 And my first teacher actually had a great approach to it. 149 00:06:49,820 --> 00:06:52,530 He would find the common parts of the language and 150 00:06:52,530 --> 00:06:54,400 sort of teach them a pseudo-language. 151 00:06:54,400 --> 00:06:58,891 And then concentrate on the details that would be different per language to kind of 152 00:06:58,891 --> 00:07:00,843 learn, hey, this is different and 153 00:07:00,843 --> 00:07:04,705 you could basically write the program immediately in a new language. 154 00:07:04,705 --> 00:07:05,427 >> That's great. Well, 155 00:07:05,427 --> 00:07:07,380 you want to give a shout out to that teacher? 156 00:07:07,380 --> 00:07:09,366 >> Yes. 157 00:07:09,366 --> 00:07:13,482 He retired as a chair at San Fransisco State. 158 00:07:13,482 --> 00:07:14,740 >> I go online. 159 00:07:14,740 --> 00:07:15,752 I come to these conferences. 160 00:07:15,752 --> 00:07:17,040 This is my first PyCon. 161 00:07:17,040 --> 00:07:18,140 >> Cool. >> It's a great conference. 162 00:07:18,140 --> 00:07:20,010 So it's a great conference so far. 163 00:07:20,010 --> 00:07:22,010 And just try to keep learning. 164 00:07:22,010 --> 00:07:24,508 I mean, in IT, you have to keep pushing yourself. 165 00:07:24,508 --> 00:07:27,950 >> I feel like because I have the basics of programming, 166 00:07:27,950 --> 00:07:32,600 I basically learn how to do what I already know into another language. 167 00:07:32,600 --> 00:07:36,315 And then after that, I find out what that language's idioms are and 168 00:07:36,315 --> 00:07:37,433 how they do things. 169 00:07:37,433 --> 00:07:41,060 And I mainly approach it that way. 170 00:07:41,060 --> 00:07:42,223 >> What's a good language that you feel? 171 00:07:42,223 --> 00:07:46,260 So you have 20 languages, what's the best language, you think, for beginners? 172 00:07:46,260 --> 00:07:47,812 >> I would say Python. 173 00:07:47,812 --> 00:07:52,013 >> I think the best language to learn is a language that best suits you for 174 00:07:52,013 --> 00:07:53,500 the project. 175 00:07:53,500 --> 00:07:58,518 So certain languages have different features, so you want to be able 176 00:07:58,518 --> 00:08:03,370 to maximize whatever that language, maybe preferred domain is. 177 00:08:03,370 --> 00:08:04,937 >> So you don't want to use, 178 00:08:04,937 --> 00:08:09,302 like you wouldn't want to use Bash to implement a web server, you know? 179 00:08:09,302 --> 00:08:14,434 So there are certain languages are more better tools for the job. 180 00:08:14,434 --> 00:08:15,080 >> I think Python. 181 00:08:16,430 --> 00:08:18,970 >> I'm biased towards Python, we're here at PyCon. 182 00:08:18,970 --> 00:08:22,530 >> I'm biased, because what I feel a good language 183 00:08:22,530 --> 00:08:27,140 to learn would be a language that let's you play with the play around. 184 00:08:27,140 --> 00:08:32,095 So Python is really good because it's very, it's not verbose. 185 00:08:32,095 --> 00:08:33,430 Batteries included. 186 00:08:33,430 --> 00:08:37,340 It allows you to play with a lot of things and very quickly. 187 00:08:37,340 --> 00:08:41,190 I find that the more verbose language is, the syntax can trip you up. 188 00:08:41,190 --> 00:08:43,360 It's a lot harder to maybe express certain things. 189 00:08:43,360 --> 00:08:48,804 You have to know a lot more machinery in order to get up and running. 190 00:08:48,804 --> 00:08:52,077 [MUSIC] 191 00:08:52,077 --> 00:08:53,790 >> Thanks for watching the Treehouse show. 192 00:08:53,790 --> 00:08:56,060 To get in touch with the show, reach out to me on Twitter or 193 00:08:56,060 --> 00:08:57,570 hit us up in the Treehouse community. 194 00:08:57,570 --> 00:08:59,000 See you next time. 195 00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:01,380 Can you believe that Lacey was Chuck E Cheese? 196 00:09:01,380 --> 00:09:03,090 So many more questions to ask her.