I was looking at Dillon's Node + Twitter Streaming API code at the same time as Peepcode's Full Stack Node.js screencast.

I refactored dillon's demo in the peepcode cast's style, minus tests and a bunch of other things to get just the most basic pattern. The result is more extensible for modular future application development than putting everything in app.js

https://github.com/thedillonb/twitter-cashtag-heatmap

http://www.dillonbuchanan.com/programming/node-js-twitter-streaming-api-socket-io-twitter-cashtag-heatmap/

https://peepcode.com/products/full-stack-nodejs-i

• installed, required coffeescript
• left server creation as it is in the express 3.4.0
• installed node-dev and executable script, ./node_modules/.bin/node-dev app.js restarting server on file saves (/bin/devserver must be executable)
• created apps/routes.coffee to handle only route
• configured socketio in separate file (may need sudo to start if you get listen EACCES error)
• put twitter in its own file, placing watchList and watchSymbols on app.settings (although there are better ways to do this)
• client side gets a complete coffeescript treatment (assets/js/application.coffee), tied together by connect-assets (back in app.js) to serve static javascript
• as in dillonb's tut, you'll need to enter your own twitter authentication info

Now, if you want to extend towards user authentication and something like, adding and deleting the twitter watch items from a database linked to the current user, as in the Peepcode tut, things are architected more similarly.

• clone this repo
• npm install to get dependencies
• get your twitter credentials and enter them into apps/twitter-stream.coffee
• run ./bin/devserver (should be executable and run as admin)