Had a great time at the app.net hackathon this weekend. Wrote Heartbeat, a timeseries monitoring API, along with Randall Leeds. As two self-proclaimed backend engineers, we managed to do nothing but client-side JS. Hah!

One of the funniest moments was when we were asking for help on how to use the Streaming API with CORS, so we wouldn't have to poll the API a shitload for our real-time demo. Our conversation with some app.net team members went like this:
> "How do we access the Streaming API using JavaScript?"

< "Have you tried using 'eventsource'?"

> "Yes, we're using 'EventSource' but we can't get CORS to work."

< Look of confusion.

< "Can't you just use a Readable Stream with chunked encoding?"

> Look of confusion.

< "Ohhhh! From a browser! You're trying to use the Streaming API with JavaScript in the Browser! We've never done that."

What is the world coming to. Made me feel like an old man, assuming that when I say "JavaScript" it's in a web browser. Randall also blew my mind by writing JS without semicolons, quickly. The kids these days!image