Node.js

Node.js is where it all began: in 2019, in high school, I wrote my first Discord bots. A hobby that became the spark of my career. Since then I use Node for backends, automation, command-line tools and document generation.

The origins: Discord and APIs

The first bots greeted new users, played music, handed out ranks, kept spammers out of the chat and ran games. Real people used them, sending bug reports and feature requests. They taught me things I still apply: event-driven programming, handling WebSocket connections, authentication with external APIs, and keeping a program up around the clock. That path is also told on the self-taught learning page.

Full-stack JavaScript

Node let me take JavaScript beyond the browser, making a natural bridge between frontend and backend: the same language on both sides, consistent data models, one syntax to master. When I build an API I'm already thinking about how the client will consume it, and the other way round.

The script that builds my resume

My resume, in English and Italian, is a PDF generated by a Node.js script with PDFMake: I keep the content in a structured format and generate the output with one command. A workflow rebuilds it once a month and on every push, as described on the CI/CD page.

Automation and scraping

Node is great for command-line tools and automation. One example: to move the catalogue of a PHP app that couldn't export its database into WordPress, I wrote a script with Cheerio that read the product and category pages. The story is on the jQuery page.

From hobby to profession

From those first bots to the applications I build today, Node stays a tool I use regularly, alongside other backend languages like PHP and Go depending on what the project needs.