Heads up! To view this whole video, sign in with your Courses account or enroll in your free 7-day trial. Sign In Enroll
Preview
Start a free Courses trial
to watch this video
In this episode we talk with our early adopter, disc golfer and Android teacher Ben Deitch
Related Discussions
Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.
Sign upRelated Discussions
Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.
Sign up
Hi I'm Craig,
welcome to the Treehouse Show.
0:00
The Treehouse Show is our weekly
conversation with the Treehouse community.
0:02
[MUSIC]
0:07
This episode we'll be chatting with the
early adopter, Treehouse Android teacher,
0:10
and disc golfer, Ben Deitch.
0:15
[NOISE] Thanks for being on the show Ben.
0:17
Yeah, glad to be here.
0:18
>> I've got a question for you.
0:20
>> Shoot.
>> How did you get started in technology?
0:21
>> And
I'm a little embarrassed to answer this.
0:25
>> Okay.
>> But Flash.
0:27
>> Flash?
0:29
>> And Flash is not a very popular thing.
0:29
>> Right.
0:32
>> But,
>> In my junior year of college
0:33
my professors wanted us to make websites.
0:35
>> Okay.
0:37
>> Because he thought that
everybody was gonna need a website.
0:38
>> He was right.
0:39
>> He sure was.
0:40
>> Yeah.
>> So
0:41
I had to choose between Dreamweaver and
Frontpage.
0:42
>> Okay.
0:45
>> And I chose Dreamweaver.
0:46
>> Okay.
0:47
>> And then in Dream Weaver they
had this little flash thing and
0:48
they're like you can do all these
animations so I made some silly animation
0:50
that I put at the top of the screen,
and that was awesome.
0:53
>> What did it do?
0:55
I don't remember.
0:56
>> Okay.
[LAUGH]
0:57
>> But it got me hooked on this
0:58
just kinda in an activity so
I could hit a button, so
1:00
first it was just an animation-
>> Right.
1:03
>> And then I figured out that
you could hit buttons and
1:05
make it do things-
>> Cool.
1:07
>> And I was hooked.
1:08
>> Right.
>> And I started doing all this Flash
1:10
stuff, and eventually I made
1:12
kind of a Minecraft clone-
>> Really?
1:14
>> In Flash.
1:16
>> Wow.
1:17
And then eventually I hit an op
code limit for the GPU for
1:18
writing shaders in Flash right which you
1:23
know Flash you're like what are you
doing in Flash with GPU stuff.
1:27
So that got me to look into Java and
1:30
then I implemented the MineCraft clone in
the same way in Java, and then C Sharp.
1:33
And then I wanted to do it on android and
then that's how I got to android.
1:38
>> Okay.
>> And
1:42
it eventually became
a live wallpaper instead.
1:42
And so I started android,
I got into android doing GPU stuff.
1:46
Which is like not Even Android
>> Wow
1:50
>> stuff so yeah, kind of a weird path.
1:52
>> Yeah, I don't think that's embarrassing
at all though, I think that's super cool.
1:54
>> Yeah, I agree, but, flash.
1:57
>> Flash, right,
it takes a knock in there.
2:00
So what do you teach here at Treehouse?
2:03
Mostly Android, with a side of Kotlin
2:05
>> Right
>> Which
2:08
is
>> That's cool
2:08
>> Yeah, a really cool way
2:09
to do Android stuff.
2:10
And it's also kind of a way that you
can do front end now with it, and
2:11
it will transpile,
2:14
I think is the right word, to Javascript,
as well as there's callin native.
2:15
Which is interesting and
I don't know much about it, and yeah so
2:19
that's awesome
>> Awesome
2:22
>> And then in addition to that
2:24
I'm working on some SQL content to
2:25
help students get a lot of practice in
kind of a real world SQL environment.
2:27
>> I'm really excited about that too.
2:30
>> That's fun, that's awesome man.
2:31
What is something that the students
might not know about you.
2:33
>> I'm really into aetherium right now.
2:39
>> What's aetherium?
2:42
>> It is.
2:43
>> I guess the easiest way to
explain it would be as kind
2:45
of BitCoin's little brother right now.
2:49
>> [LAUGH]
>> But that's really not doing it justice.
2:51
>> Okay, so explain, let's back up,
BitCoin, I have heard the term.
2:54
I don't exactly understand what that is.
2:57
>> Yeah, so BitCoin
>> What it allows you to do right
3:00
now is you can basically send BitCoins and
3:03
receive BitCoins to people anywhere in
the world, and it's fairly easy to do.
3:05
>> Okay.
3:09
>> And it's being used as a currency, so
you can kinda trade value with somebody
3:10
in, say, China,
just over the Internet really easily.
3:14
And that's nice, but in Ethereum,
this is in BitCoin too, but
3:18
it's a lot harder to do.
3:21
And with Ethereum you have this
concept of smart contracts.
3:22
Okay.
3:25
>> And smart contract,
let me just back up another step.
3:26
Another way that you an think of
the is like a global computer.
3:30
>> Okay.
3:33
>> So whereas BitCoin is global and
everybody.
3:34
So, one thing about
BitCoin is that everybody,
3:37
every node in the network has a copy
of the entire transaction ledger.
3:40
>> Okay.
3:44
>> So, it's
>> Whoever
3:45
has the node knows that Craig
has this many bitcoins.
3:49
>> Okay.
>> They can just figure it out.
3:52
There's a global state
of bitcoin ownership.
3:54
>> Okay.
3:58
>> And with Ethereum,
you can have this global state of, and
3:58
the tokens are called ether,
ether ownership.
4:02
But what they can also do is in that
global state, you can have contracts.
4:06
And what a contract is is
like a little program.
4:09
>> So you can have say, let's say you're
a movie and you set up a contract,
4:12
what the contract does is that any
money that comes in to this contract,
4:16
it's just gonna split that out
to some predefined addresses.
4:20
So, if you wanted people to take
a percentage of gross on the movie,
4:23
you could set up all the addresses
in to this contract for
4:27
all the people and the percentages
that they would get of gross.
4:30
>> And
you deploy that contract to the network.
4:33
>> Okay.
>> And then once it's on the network,
4:36
it can't really be changed or anything.
4:39
It's there for people to audit,
they can look at it.
4:40
And then when the movie gets its money,
you just put all the money into that
4:43
contract, and it would automatically
By rule of code, go to those people.
4:45
>> Wow, that's a big mistake
if you code that wrong.
4:50
[LAUGH]
>> Right, yeah, you gotta get it right,
4:53
it's important.
4:54
>> [LAUGH] And
everybody can see the contracts.
4:55
>> Yeah.
>> So there's no hidden money,
4:58
is that kind of the concept?
4:59
Yeah
>> Okay.
5:02
>> But you can still hide it in the same
way you can hide it on BitCoin,
5:03
you can make a hundred accounts and
start trading all between them.
5:06
with VPNs, you really can get
complicated if you like too.
5:11
>> That's like the off shore
banking of- > Exactly like that.
5:14
>> Cool, cool.
5:17
Wow, and
this is such an early adopter thing.
5:20
It seems like you
are always early adopting.
5:23
I think you're the first
person I know who had VR.
5:25
>> Yeah.
>> Could you tell me about your VR
5:27
experience a bit?
5:30
>> Well, VR is just one of those
things where it was like, it's coming,
5:32
you can see it coming, and you just
knew that it was gonna be really big.
5:36
So I wanted to be there for
it when it landed.
5:40
>> Okay.
5:42
And then it took forever to show
up cause Aqua had shipping delays,
5:43
well you don't know but shipping delays so
it took a while to get out there.
5:46
But, yeah, the logic seemed pretty clear
there that I wanted to be a part of this.
5:52
>> Right.
5:56
>> Especially for all the people that,
>> Who aren't me, but
5:57
are around earlier than me.
5:59
And just seeing all the cool VR stuff,
in movies and everybody's so
6:02
excited about VR all the time.
6:05
And it's here.
6:07
>> Yeah.
>> Like it's freaking here.
6:07
>> Right.
6:09
>> So cool.
>> And you actually watched
6:09
>> Flicks on your device, right?
6:11
Is that right?
>> Yeah!
6:13
>> That's where you watch your movies.
6:14
>> Yeah!
>> With a gigantic screen in
6:15
front of your face.
6:16
>> Right.
>> Yeah, that's awesome.
6:17
And you, there's like, social stuff right?
6:19
>> There is, I haven't used it a lot,
because unfortunately,
6:21
not a lot of people have VR yet.
6:25
>> Okay.
>> It's expensive.
6:26
>> I was thinking maybe we could
make that dream come true,
6:29
because I have
>> A headset here.
6:31
Dude did you bring your headset?
6:33
>> I did.
>> Okay.
6:34
Let's go in together and
6:35
we can see what the social
experience is like and record it.
6:37
>> Yeah.
>> All right.
6:40
Let's do it.
6:41
>> Should I be seeing you?
6:42
I'm in this room.
6:43
>> I'm over at the table.
6:45
I'm playing Simon Says.
6:47
Next, map launcher you're
at the games table?
6:51
>> I'm at the games table I don't
see anybody else on the games table.
6:54
There you are,
it's weird that you're over there.
6:57
>> Is that you?
6:59
You're bald.
7:01
>> So are you well we've gotta set our
avatars or whatever that screen was?
7:02
>> What was that?
7:06
>> [INAUDIBLE] Side.
7:07
>> Okay.
7:09
[MUSIC]
7:12
Thanks for watching The Treehouse Show.
7:17
To get in touch with the show,
reach out to me on Twitter.
7:18
Or hit us up in the Treehouse community.
7:20
See you next time.
7:22
You need to sign up for Treehouse in order to download course files.
Sign upYou need to sign up for Treehouse in order to set up Workspace
Sign up