Things Steve Holyer and I have learned during our 2 day Hackathon at christmas 2010

1. tweet now with #webtuesday,
listeners are standing by
Hacking for fun and profit
(with node.js, mongodb and rails)

2. who the hell are they?!...

3. what?
2 Day Hackathon
requirements:
use new technology
limitscope - something we can finish in a day or 2
...and be proud about the result.
Image: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/25/hack-till-you-drop/

4. why?...
because we wanted to be rich and
famous like Zuckerberg
(...or at least, to have fun and learn something new)
Image: http://www.gearlog.com/2010/10/national_bosss_day_techs_top_b.php

5. what we've learned
don't underestimate the cost of setting up dev infrastructure
or the cost of learning new technology
a deadline is useful
accountability is good

6. what we've learned
rake and cap are cooler than make and ant
hidden cost of third party dependencies
no easy answers to hosting questions
moving to NoSQL might be easier than you think

7. script to insert into mongodb
var mongo = require('mongodb'),
db = new mongo.Db('wt', new mongo.Server('localhost',
27017, { },{ });
db.open(function(){
db.collection('attendees', function(err, collection)
{
var attendee = { name: 'foo', age: 42}
collection.insert(attendee, function(){ });
});
});

8. script to fetch tweets (by hashtag)
var TwitterNode= require('twitter-node')TwitterNode,
sys = require('sys');
var tn = new TwitterNode({
user: 'your username',
password: 'your password',
track: ['webtuesday'] });
tn.addListener('tweet', function(status){
sys.put(status.user.screen_name);
}).stream();