Brad Chase

I believe the barrier to entry for many beginning developers is nailing down the fundamentals, and that's what I'm here to help with.

The fundamentals aren't necessarily the hardest to grasp, but "unconscious competence" can often blind more senior developers to their existence. As a result, their explanation tends to be omitted from most tutorials, replaced instead with words like "just", "of course", and "trivially". I'm sure I've been guilty of these omissions myself, but when I have a mentee in front of me that's stuck, I'm dogged in my pursuit to identify where the gaps in their knowledge lie, and how to forever sew them shut.

And because this road can be a long and difficult one, I also know that it helps to have a friend by your side through the journey; so more than just helping to navigate new concepts and technical issues, I want to serve as moral support for others who are now where I once was. Through the entire journey, but especially at the beginning, I think having this support can make or break, and I don't want to see anyone broken.

As for me, I love learning languages, both programming and natural.

When it comes to human languages, I can both read and converse in Japanese, but I'm currently focused on increasing my vocabulary in hopes of comprehending more complicated subject matter.

In the world of programming, I love Ruby, tolerate JavaScript (grin), and am currently most interested in functional languages. Previously I had been using Elixir quite a bit, but at the moment ML-style languages like Haskell, Elm, and PureScript have been holding most of my attention.

Things I'd particularly love to help you with include:

• Haskell (getting started or exploring new concepts)
• Elm and/or JavaScript (building in-browser applications)
• Ruby (getting started or leveling up)
• Rails (picking projects, implementing features, exploring libraries, etc.)
• web development in general (front- or back-end)

If any of this sounds like what you're looking for in a mentor, please don't hesitate to get in touch, even if you'd just like to chat. I'll be looking forward to hear from you!