Blog

Learn about new PubNub releases, industry trends, and app development tips.

This Serverless Whack-A-Mole Game is Your Next Game Night
BuildSep 21, 2016

This Serverless Whack-A-Mole Game is Your Next Game Night

This blog is based on my talk from NodePDX 2016. You can watch the full video of my session, or read my other writings on my personal blog. Today I’m going to build a casual Massively Multiplayer Online game. Something that can have 50 or more people playing at the same time. And I’m going to do...
Michael Carroll
Michael Carroll
Real-time Garage Door Control with a LiftMaster and PubNub
BuildSep 20, 2016

Real-time Garage Door Control with a LiftMaster and PubNub

Household appliances are not the kind of thing consumers really get excited about; they’re no iPhone. But thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), that seems to be changing. It is now easy, inexpensive, and a lot more fun to create connected devices in every area of life, from cars and homes to...
Michael Carroll
Michael Carroll
Meow: A Programming Language Created in Just 180 Lines
BuildSep 15, 2016

Meow: A Programming Language Created in Just 180 Lines

In the three previous posts in this series, we learned how to use Ohm to parse numbers, build an expression tree, and process blocks of code with conditionals. In this final post on the Ohm series, we will finish up our complete programming language, Meow, with looping and real function calls. Thanks...
Michael Carroll
Michael Carroll
Add Code Blocks and Conditionals to Ohm
BuildSep 14, 2016

Add Code Blocks and Conditionals to Ohm

Welcome back! In our first Ohm post, we introduced Ohm and built our very own parser to handle numbers in various formats. In our second post, we turned our parser into a real arithmetic language with binary operations and symbols. Today we will give our language code blocks and conditionals.  ...
Michael Carroll
Michael Carroll
How Functions Keeps Your Code Secure
News Sep 13, 2016

How Functions Keeps Your Code Secure

Middleware Functions, a new feature of the PubNub Data Stream Network that lets you move computation into the network itself, allowing your apps to go completely serverless. Check how Functions work. How does it secure potentially un-trusted code? How does it keep one app separate from another? How does...
Michael Carroll
Michael Carroll
Functions: Serverless Computation at Scale
News Sep 12, 2016

Functions: Serverless Computation at Scale

We’re excited to announce Functions, a better way to do serverless computing at scale with real-time data. Now you can program the data network itself to do your bidding, compute real-time data, combine multiple webservices into a single workflow, and conjure a gelatinous cube with only spoony bard....
Michael Carroll
Michael Carroll
Build Your Own Symbol Calculator with Ohm
BuildSep 8, 2016

Build Your Own Symbol Calculator with Ohm

Last time I introduced Ohm, an open source meta language parser with an easy to use syntax, we built a parser for different number formats. Basically, I showed you how to easily build your own programming language with just a few lines of code. This week we will extend the parser to calculate arithmetic...
Michael Carroll
Michael Carroll
Build a Real-Time Voting System for Presidential Elections
BuildSep 6, 2016

Build a Real-Time Voting System for Presidential Elections

Voting online and seeing the results instantly on the web is a very convenient way to conduct quick surveys or pop polls. But you already know that because of the primary season. This real-time voting tutorial was made for the first technical workshop I led as an evangelist intern this summer, a at YouTube’s...
Michael Carroll
Michael Carroll
DIY Virtual Whiteboard Using Google and Firebase
BuildSep 1, 2016

DIY Virtual Whiteboard Using Google and Firebase

When it comes to productivity, real-time collaboration is a staple of modern communication. An obvious example of this is, say, Google Docs. In this tutorial, my app Brain Drain takes that idea a step further, creating a freeform virtual whiteboard allowing users to collaborate as if they are all in...
Michael Carroll
Michael Carroll