Javascript

When I first designed Sharp Cooking, my goal was to provide smart features that other cooking apps lacked. Features like unit conversion (e.g., cups to grams) and recipe suggestions based on the ingredients you have at home were at the core of my vision. Over time, some of these features have been gradually implemented, but it’s been a challenging journey. Before large language models (LLMs) became widely accessible, using AI for these features was a significant challenge. Training custom AI models required extensive time, effort, and infrastructure. Hosting them also wasn’t straightforward. But with the rise of LLMs, leveraging AI capabilities has become more accessible—and even better, LLMs are well-suited to the kinds of interactions I envisioned for Sharp Cooking. ...

In my previous post, I announced that the Sharp Cooking Companion Chrome Extension was under review in the Chrome Web Store. I’m happy to say that it’s now available for download! The extension allows users to browse recipe websites normally in Chrome or Edge. When a recipe is desired, the user can click the extension icon and it will scrape the recipe data and generate a share code. Users can then paste or scan the share code in the app to import the recipe. ...

One of the coolest features in Sharp Cooking is its ability to import recipes from a website. See a recipe you like? Just paste the URL into Sharp Cooking, and voilà! The recipe is imported and ready to use. But have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes? And why sometimes it doesn’t work as expected? Unfortunately, the process isn’t always straightforward. The CORS Problem When I transitioned Sharp Cooking into a Progressive Web App (PWA)—blame Apple for that—a CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) issue emerged. Browsers, whether PWAs or not, block cross-origin requests by default. This security feature prevents malicious scripts from accessing data from other websites, but it also stops Sharp Cooking from fetching recipes directly. ...

Introduction I should start by saying that I am a big proponent of TypeScript. I have been using it since version 1.5 back in 2015. Coming from a backend background with typed languages, not having types in JavaScript was an interesting experience for me. As a developer, the two aspects of typed languages that help me the most are intellisense and the compiler. Intellisense helps me write code faster, and the compiler helps me catch errors before runtime. ...