PhantomJS REPL: it's ready for a taste

After 2 months of on-off working on this, I finally managed to make something I’m happy with: a REPL for PhantomJS. The last post I wrote about this was in November 2011 (!!!). But I started putting code together only in Jan 2012. So, overall, from the first commit until today is almost 2 months. First thing first: how do you get to try it? Well, you can get my fork, switch to the dev-repl branch and try it out: ...

February 27, 2012 Â· 2 min Â· 311 words

Web dev: do we need to raise the bar?

Articles like this one and initiatives like “pre-fix the Web”, aim to highlight to web-developers how important is to build a cross-browser web. The importance of such a point has been explained in so many places, there is no point in me saying anymore. People like Tim Huegdon can give you a far better lesson on this. But if you are after a “one sentence to blame them all”: If you write a website caring only to test it on WebKit based browser (worse, only your iPhone!!!), you are a MORON. ...

February 21, 2012 Â· 2 min Â· 387 words

My Rhinoceros likes WebSocket, not leafs

Last week I started implementing W3C Sockets API into a Rhino based JavaScript runtime. It seems like plumbing API from one environment to another is one of the activity I do the most. And if you dare doing a joke about my Italian-ness and Super Mario… you will be pointed in the direction of the door. Here I want to share a couple of findings. Rhino is not bad at all Yes, I said it. And who has worked in the past with me, knows how my opinion are hard to change. But they do sometimes, fortunately. ...

February 14, 2012 Â· 2 min Â· 399 words

Scope 'this', and scope 'that'

As a guy that tries to live his professional life in the middle of the dichotomy “C/C++ - JavaScript”, I often find myself discussing the discrepancies, differences and implementation details of the latter (an half-assed prototypal language) using the former. The other day I was chatting with Luca (@lucabox) about scope in JS, and we were describing the different situations you can end up with… and how we work our way out of those culprits. ...

February 12, 2012 Â· 8 min Â· 1541 words

USA: 2 weeks in, another 1 to go

In 2006 I decide that I wanted to leave my home country. I wanted to try hard and make some space for me in the world (well, the tech-world). I was really tired of being paid fuck all, dealing with a country driven by old-and-hard-to-die politicians, not seeing any foreseeable future in front of me. I made a decision, and I started working towards my leaving (I finishing uni, so this required a bit of planning). ...

January 31, 2012 Â· 4 min Â· 758 words

ai-class.com - Wrapping up

I have been thinking about what to write in this post since the day I took the final exam of the Stanford Online AI Class. I have so many things to say (and still to do), that I have a mess of mixed thoughts in my head. So, I apologise in advance if thoughts will sound a bit random. Amazing experience That’s what this class has been for me. I have learnt tons of new things, all thanks to the great work of prof. Thrun and Norvig. I digged into the amazing topic of Artificial Intelligence, and now I feel a bit more “round” as a Computer Scientist. ...

January 4, 2012 Â· 6 min Â· 1264 words

Crossing the pond

I borrowed the title from a guy who kickstarted all of this. Thanks Ariya ;) I’m leaving Betfair. I owe a lot to this company: for a bit longer than a year I have had the pleasure to work with smart, enlightened, knowledgeable people from which I learned loads. Leaving was definitely not an easy choice. The only thing didn’t happen, is that I didn’t become a proper punter: I just learned that even something sounding “boring” as betting on sports, can actually be a very big challenge in terms of the technologies involved. Even more, if you try to do it in the Betfair way: with million of customers, all constantly hammering the servers to make the most out of their money. ...

December 13, 2011 Â· 2 min Â· 370 words

ai-class.com - My shared Notebook

I decide that is very little point in keep writing posts just to highlight new notes, as I finish to write them. So, I decide to just share with the world all my notes about the ai-class. You will find them in (sort of) chronological order, and will give also an idea on how I studied so far (as every material I produced is in there). About the homework, I’ll make sure NOT TO PUBLISH THEM BEFORE the respective deadline: I don’t want to break the Stanford Honor Code. ...

November 23, 2011 Â· 1 min Â· 122 words

ai-class.com - Notes of Lesson 7, 8, 9 and 10

I have been very busy at home and in the weekend, so I’m a bit behind with study and sharing my notes. I just finished going through the very interesting lesson 9, and I now have to start with lesson 10. I plan to do it on Saturday: tomorrow is a special night! ;-) Instead, regarding lesson 8, I just managed to put down the list of topics discussed, but for lack of time I didn’t put anything in writing just yet. Will eventually do it (maybe). ...

November 11, 2011 Â· 1 min Â· 194 words

REPL and HTTP Mapping: ideas to contribute to PhantomJS

Recently, I’m donating my spare time to the amazing Stanford Online AI Class, and writing down notes takes time. But I’m still working, in the spare time of the spare time, on PhantomJS. Yes, very slowly, but I’m not stall. Recently two ideas have come to mind, and it’s stuff I’d love to see supported by PhantomJS. REPL From the Wikipedia article: A read–eval–print loop (REPL), also known as an interactive toplevel, is a simple, interactive computer programming environment. […] In a REPL, the user may enter expressions, which are then evaluated, and the results displayed. ...

November 1, 2011 Â· 4 min Â· 663 words