Realtime web applications with streaming REST
summary
Shows a concrete implementation: a small evented Rack server called Firehose that pushes JSON model representations from ActiveRecord into RabbitMQ queues and serves clients over Thin using HTTP long polling and WebSockets. Claims this replaces polling, keeps the existing Rails API and authorization by HEAD-checking streams, uses RabbitMQ X-expires mailboxes to survive reconnects, and limits transports to two. Prototype runs in staging and is scheduled for production rollout next week.
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chapters (13)
- 0:00Introduction
- 0:44Realtime apps at Poll Everywhere
- 3:37RESTful APIs and frameworks
- 5:01Long polling limitations
- 8:52Scaling and team challenges
- 12:05Streaming REST vs Socket.IO
- 15:20Problems with realtime frameworks
- 16:48Firehose streaming framework
- 19:39Firehose implementation
- 23:14Minimal invasiveness benefits
- 24:39Firehose security and plans
- 27:46Firehose open source
- 28:28Q&A
