Hi everyone! 👋

I'm Francesco, a researcher at the University of Padua, Italy 🇮🇹

In my field (Operations Research), it often happens that state-of-the-art algorithms described in research papers don't have an open-source implementation available. In my spare time, I'm trying to contribute by writing clear and usable code for some of them.
With Luca Accorsi, I recently started with the CFT algorithm, which is still one of the best ways we know to solve "Set Covering" problems heuristically. While it's a small project, I hope it can be useful for others.

My main goal is to create a freely available codebase that can be a resource for researchers and anyone who needs help with optimization problems. Your support would help me dedicate more time to these projects and contribute even more valuable tools to the open-source community.

I primarily use C++ because it allows me to explore aspects of coding that I really enjoy and I'm passionate about:

• Efficiency: I enjoy the challenge of optimizing code for better performance.
• Clean Code: I strive for the utopia of self-documenting code 😁.
• Metaprogramming: C++'s tools for manipulating code itself are fascinating to me, especially for the type of reasoning they unlock when designing new abstractions.
• Compromise: The previous three points are often in conflict. Finding a good (Pareto optimal) balance between them is an ongoing and satisfying learning process.

There are also newer languages that I follow with interest, like Rust, Carbon, Circle, or Zig, which provides valuable alternative points of view for the previous aspects. I'm always learning and I'm eager to start using them more seriusly!

Thanks for considering supporting me!