
Show HN: SpaceMagic, a real-time node.js framework - ZachS
http://spacemagic.io
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webjprgm
Was this already in progress or made in response to meteor (and firebase)?

I'm sure a lot of us could rip the real-time/live updating/auto-synchronizing
(pick your term) engine out of our current web apps and package it up in a
tiny framework without much effort.

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EButlerIV
The idea came about a year and a half ago. We seriously started working on it,
and committing to a public github repository, about six months ago. Meteor's
release just changed our public announcement date from "sometime in the near
future" to "Friday."

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mhd
node.js has real-time guarantees?

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stcredzero
Exactly what I was thinking. This is the third recent post to HN using "real-
time" in this fashion. They're hijacking a term which already has widespread
use and which, "doesn't mean what they think it does," to hijack a line from
Princess Bride.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_computing>

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ZachS
I use "real-time" in this fashion because describing it as "soft real-time"
seems weird.

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mhd
Didn't we call websites that update without a manual page reload "AJAX" just a
few minutes ago? And yes, even if there's no XML present, but at least it's an
abuse of a pretty new, web-specific term.

I propose we call all that stuff "FEFYOM" (Fast Enough For You Old Man) from
now on.

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wmf
AJAX is where you click on something and then the page updates. Comet is where
the page updates without the user having to initiate anything.

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pork
Fascinating...so wrapping an Ajax call inside a window.setInterval
automatically switches it to "Comet"?

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samrat
Could someone please explain: How does this compare to Meteor?

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EButlerIV
That's fair to ask. We're both trying to solve the same problems in similar
ways. Both of us use Node and MongoDB and both of us keep everything
automatically synched and up to date between the client and server.

We do things a little differently. We built SpaceMagic while working on a
real-time web app of our own and did so with the goal of making our work as
easy as possible. Ideally, we want to make developing realtime apps as easy as
it is to make non-realtime apps. First, we support semantic HTML templates,
allowing developers to turn their mocks into working prototype applications
with a bit of javascript. Second, we make developers able to write validation
and other important code once and have it run on both the client and the
server. Third, SpaceMagic is released as just another npm package that works
with your preexisting Node install and packages.

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firefoxman1
Thanks for the great explanation. So it might be more comparable to something
like SocketStream + MVC pattern?

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draggnar
back button an issue for anyone else?

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MattBearman
Me too, Chrome 18 on OSX Lion - Because of this I have instant dislike of this
framework.

