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In this episode we interview a long time fan of the Treehouse Show, and amazing Treehouse student Moses Finlay! Also, he's 11.
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Hi, I'm Craig, welcome to the Treehouse Show. 0:00
The treehouse show is our weekly conversation with the Treehouse community. 0:02
We have a very special guest on the show today, Moses Finlay. 0:09
He is a student and a longtime fan of the Treehouse Show, and 0:13
the creator of many applications. 0:16
Most notably, the video note taking site, vdnote.com. 0:18
Yeah, did I forget to mention? 0:22
He's 11. 0:24
Moses, I am so happy to have you on the show today. 0:25
>> Yeah, it's good to be here. 0:28
I'm really excited. 0:29
>> Yeah, I heard that you're a fan of the show. 0:30
>> Yes, I am. 0:33
I watch it, like, almost every week. 0:33
>> That's awesome! 0:35
>> Yeah. >> So, we're so 0:36
lucky to have you on the show. 0:37
>> Yeah! >> I have a question for you. 0:38
How did you get started in technology? 0:41
>> Okay, well, for 0:43
all my life I've always loved knowing, building things and knowing how they work. 0:45
>> Okay. 0:50
>> And one day my dad was like, hey, you should get into programming. 0:51
>> Okay. 0:54
>> And I'm like, okay, that sounds really cool. 0:55
What is it? 0:57
>> How old were you? 0:58
>> I think I was, maybe eight. 1:00
>> Okay. 1:02
>> Yeah, so then he was like, okay, just basically, where are you? 1:03
Tell the computer what to do and you can build websites and stuff like that. 1:08
So we found this place called codecademy and 1:12
I started learning on there for a little while, and then, 1:14
I started playing on Treehouse because I found out and I'm like, this is amazing. 1:18
>> Okay. >> So, I've just been doing Treehouse for 1:23
the past year and a half, I think. 1:25
>> Wow! >> Or two years, yeah. 1:27
>> And so how old are you now? 1:28
>> I'm 11. >> You're 11 now, wow. 1:30
Okay, so you've got a lot of experience under your belt. 1:32
What are you taking on Treehouse? 1:36
>> So right now I'm learning JavaScript. 1:37
>> Okay. >> I'm going through the full stack 1:40
JavaScript track, yep. 1:41
>> Okay. Awesome, so 1:43
you have two years experience there. 1:43
So what sort of advice would you give to students that are learning JavaScript? 1:45
>> Okay, so, well first I would say find a great place to learn, Treehouse. 1:50
Treehouse is a great place. 1:54
Also, sometimes you might be down, and 1:56
I just say, if you have any questions just go to a forum. 1:59
>> Okay. >> Like Stack Overflow is a great one and 2:03
just ask questions. 2:05
Also sometimes you just need to just take a break. 2:07
>> That's a great, taking a break is great advice. 2:13
>> Yup. Taking a break, yeah. 2:15
Mm-hm. Yeah, just take a break and yeah. 2:16
>> Do you ever get frustrated? 2:19
>> [LAUGH] Yeah sometimes, but I just, if I have a question I just ask it and 2:21
then usually when I'm frustrated I just put it away, thing about it, and 2:28
then you know, once it comes to me or once I figure out the problem, 2:33
I'll go back- >> Right. 2:38
>> And it works! 2:39
>> Isn't that funny how that works? 2:40
>> Yeah, I know. 2:41
>> Like when you're really upset about something and you're focusing on it, but 2:41
when you walk away that's usually when it- >> One time, 2:44
there was this big bug in my program and I was like, what? 2:47
What's going on? 2:51
And then I just put it away, I went to bed, next morning light bulb. 2:53
A typo. 2:59
>> A typo, wow. 3:00
>> I was like thinking about my code and then like, it's a typo. 3:01
Or I just like typing the wrong thing out or I'm not doing it the right way. 3:07
You just. 3:11
Yeah, I usually just think about it and there's also lots of great experienced 3:12
programmers and I usually ask questions from them. 3:17
>> That's great. 3:20
Asking questions, I think, is a great advice and a lot of people, 3:21
sometimes feel like maybe you shouldn't ask questions, but you should. 3:23
>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. 3:26
Don't feel like you shouldn't ask questions because, yeah. 3:28
>> Its kind of, is it easy to pick up? 3:33
Did you think it was easy? 3:35
>> Yes. 3:36
>> Okay. 3:37
>> Well no. 3:38
Sometimes I'd spend like a couple of hours just trying to figure 3:39
out- >> Okay. 3:42
>> Like something. 3:43
Because so like there would be like a bug in my code and 3:43
I'd like start digging through it. 3:48
>> Okay. >> And I eventually find out and 3:51
then that kind of just like helped me gets stronger. 3:53
>> Okay. >> And then like next time I'd be like. 3:57
>> How did you- >> That's easy, yeah. 3:59
>> So how did you find that, how did you keep going? 4:01
That's the advice that I was kind of looking for, but 4:03
I think you probably have some. 4:05
>> Like, like. >> You might not have thought of it 4:06
as advice before. 4:07
How do you keep going? 4:10
How do you keep going after [CROSSTALK] >> I don't know. 4:10
I love it, I love it a ton. 4:13
>> Okay. >> And. 4:15
I don't know, it just comes to me. 4:17
I just do it all the time. 4:19
>> Okay, why do you love it at time? 4:22
What do you love about programming? 4:23
>> Okay, you can build things. 4:25
You can tell the computer what to do and 4:26
the computer is a very, very powerful tool and it's just. 4:27
I just love it, because you can tell it what you do and build things, and 4:31
you know how it works. 4:35
And if you learn enough you can build anything. 4:36
>> Right. Anything. 4:38
Do you have a dream of, what would you like to build if you could? 4:39
>> Well, I don't know, maybe a social media. 4:44
>> Okay. >> That would be really cool. 4:49
>> Okay. 4:51
So, you showed me a little bit earlier a project that you were working on. 4:52
Can you talk about that? 4:56
>> Yeah, so I built this project called VDnote. 4:57
>> VDnote. 5:01
>> vdnote.com. 5:02
>> You got a website? 5:04
>> Yep it's on a website yep. 5:04
>> Wow. >> So, basically, 5:05
you can watch videos on my website by pasting the YouTube URL. 5:08
>> Okay. >> And then you can take notes 5:13
based on that. 5:14
>> So it plays the video in your website and you take notes with it. 5:15
>> Yep, and you can email the notes to yourself if you want and 5:18
I'm working on adding new features and stuff, so. 5:21
Yeah. 5:24
>> Wow, that's super cool. 5:24
What technology did you use? 5:26
>> Okay, so I used html, 5:27
CSS just to build the website structure and then I used JavaScript. 5:30
>> Okay. And did you learn all that stuff here? 5:34
>> Yes all of it. 5:37
>> Wow, that's super neat. 5:39
That's cool. 5:40
And so you're taking notes on any video. 5:41
>> Any video. >> Because you can paste any video 5:44
in there. 5:46
>> Yeah. Any video off YouTube. 5:47
I'm gonna work on adding other videos from other websites. 5:48
>> Okay. >> But currently just YouTube. 5:51
>> Cool, that is super neat. 5:53
So when you were building that app. 5:55
When you were building this VDNote.com, which is awesome that you have a website. 5:56
>> Yeah. >> Did you run into any problems? 6:00
>> Yes, so for the email thing. 6:03
So like you could add notes and 6:06
then if you remove a note, it would still show up in the email. 6:08
So I had to turn each thing into, just give it its own little ID. 6:13
So you could access that ID. 6:19
Every time you removed it you would completely remove it from the program. 6:21
>> Cool! >> And then it would remove it from 6:25
the email too. 6:26
>> Wow! 6:27
>> So, then it, yeah, so it works now, so- >> Nice! 6:28
>> Yeah. 6:31
>> Awesome! >> Yeah. 6:31
>> So, if you could do me a favor and users of vdnote.com, what's 6:32
something that they wouldn't know about you from just using your application? 6:38
>> You mean like me personally? 6:43
>> You personally, yeah. 6:45
>> Yeah, okay. 6:46
Well, I live in Hawaii. 6:46
>> Okay. 6:48
>> And I go surfing almost every day. 6:49
>> You go surfing? 6:50
Wow, okay. 6:51
>> Yeah, so yeah. 6:52
And I'm home schooled. 6:54
>> You're home schooled. 6:55
Awesome. 6:56
>> Yeah. >> Awesome, awesome. 6:56
>> Yeah. >> Have you built other apps, 6:58
other than your video? 7:00
>> Well, I'm working on getting some other ideas for apps. 7:03
>> Okay. >> But I do have my website. 7:06
>> Okay. >> Well, kind of like my portfolio website 7:08
where I post my projects in there. 7:10
>> Nice, awesome. 7:12
>> Yeah so- >> Let's share that out. 7:13
>> MosesFinlay.com. 7:15
>> MosesFinlay.com all right awesome. 7:16
>> Yeah. 7:17
>> Cool great. 7:18
When you see things like technology where it's headed right now, 7:19
so you see the self driving cars and 7:24
things like that do you have any ideas on what you'd like to see happen? 7:26
>> Well one thing that would be cool is like the computer could make programs and 7:31
make things just by itself. 7:35
>> Write itself. 7:37
>> That would be cool. 7:38
Have you seen those movies? 7:39
>> No, I don't think so. 7:41
>> Okay, cuz it gets kind of scary. 7:42
[LAUGH] >> Yeah. 7:44
Yeah. 7:46
>> Awesome. So, they could write their own thing. 7:49
>> I think that would be cool. 7:50
Yeah. >> Like, the computer makes its 7:52
own Facebook. 7:53
>> Yeah. Well, maybe not that. 7:54
>> So they could chat with each other. 7:55
>> That would be also be really complicated, but yeah, probably. 7:57
>> Right. >> That would be kind of cool. 8:00
>> Do you think the robots need to have a social media app? 8:01
[LAUGH] >> That would be like one of the coolest 8:04
things ever, like texting, what did you do today? 8:09
>> [LAUGH] >> Yeah, that would be really cool. 8:12
>> That's awesome. 8:15
All right, I really want to say thank you for being on the show. 8:17
You are such an inspiration to see you sticking with it and 8:20
being so, just showing that you can do it and stick with it. 8:23
I'm really excited to have you on here. 8:26
And please keep us updated on what you're doing 8:29
>> Okay, I will, yeah. 8:32
>> Because it's amazing. 8:32
I'm so impressed with everything you do. 8:33
>> Thank you. 8:35
>> Thanks for watching The Treehouse Show. 8:35
To get in touch with the show, reach out to me on Twitter or 8:37
hit us up in The Treehouse community. 8:39
See you next time. 8:41
Since Moses was in the office, 8:42
we figured we'd let him take a spin doing a screen cast. 8:43
Is there anything this kid can't do? 8:46
>> Hi everyone, my name is Moses and this is my website. 8:48
Right here, and I have some projects that you can view here. 8:53
What I really wanted to show you guys is this note taking app I made for videos. 8:58
And you can paste any YouTube URL for 9:01
any video you want, and can take notes based on that video. 9:04
So I have a video up here that I'll copy. 9:08
And then we can go over here, and paste that in here. 9:12
So then, the video shows up right here. 9:17
So now you can take notes based on the video. 9:22
You can take notes based on the video like this and then it just pops down here. 9:29
So you can just like basically take notes on any video you want. 9:33
Also I had a little bit of trouble making this, 9:36
like you could add notes like this and then when you would. 9:40
See. So when you look at this, there, 9:47
you could remove a note like this but it won't show up on email. 9:51
And I had to like give each note specifically an ID or 9:56
something to basically identify it. 10:00
So that when you would send the notes, they would pop up right here, even though, 10:03
I removed all those. 10:07
So, yeah, that's basically it. 10:08
So, yep. 10:10
[SOUND] 10:11
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