Ben Cail
Digital Library Programmer at Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island, United States
Summary
🤩
RockstarBen Cail is a Digital Library Programmer with 13 years of experience building Python/Django tools and Fedora repository support at Brown University. He specializes in backend development, creating Django apps and utilities that bridge institutional repositories with practical workflows. An active open-source contributor, Ben has submitted bug fixes and feature enhancements to Django itself and improved integration for Select2 widgets, coupling feature work with thorough pytest-backed QA. Based in Providence, he brings deep knowledge of content storage, migrations, and multi-database setups—areas where he has fixed subtle edge cases. Colleagues rely on him for pragmatic solutions that prioritize data integrity and testability. Beyond the code, he focuses on making complex library systems reliably accessible to researchers and archivists.
13 years of coding experience
Github Skills (16)
application-framework10
app-framework10
web-framework10
pytest10
widgets10
python10
django10
testing10
database-management9
modeling9
migration9
postgresql9
orm9
javascript8
html6
Programming languages (10)
Github contributions (5)
django/django
Oct 2022 - Oct 2022
The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:74 reviews, 1 commit, 27 PRs in 1 day
Contributions summary:Ben primarily contributed to bug fixes and enhancements within the Django framework. Their work included adding support for `values()`/`values_list()` in `ArrayField` lookups, preserving `HTTP_HOST` in test clients, and fixing issues related to ContentType retrieval in multiple database setups. Additionally, the user addressed migration-related problems, specifically concerning SQLite primary key changes, and file storage. They also made changes to password validation.
web-frameworkpythondjangoframeworkorm
applegrew/django-select2
Feb 2015 - Apr 2015
This is a Django integration for Select2
Role in this project:Back-end Developer & QA Engineer
Back-end Developer & QA EngineerContributions:5 commits, 4 PRs, 12 comments in 1 month
Contributions summary:Ben primarily contributed to the Django integration for Select2, focusing on implementing features and writing tests. They added and modified widgets, forms, and views to incorporate select2 functionality, including creating a custom widget for heavy select2 fields and addressing issues with tag rendering. Their work also included adding and modifying tests using pytest, demonstrating a focus on ensuring the correct behavior of the select2 implementation and the display of the results, including specific testing for both basic and heavy select2 widgets.
djangoselect2
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.