The Pancreas of the Backend

Last night, completely out of the blue, the profile page on 3Speak’s newest frontend stopped displaying videos.

To be fair, I’d already been toying with the idea of swapping out that backend component—but it definitely wasn’t at the top of the list.

Frustrating as it was, I decided to call it a night and deal with it in the morning. Midnight is hardly the ideal time to start rewriting core logic, and coding while annoyed is a great way to create bugs you’ll regret later.

This morning, though, I woke up feeling oddly pumped.

As I was drifting off to sleep, the steps toward a solution started lining themselves up in my head—slowly, but clearly. It’s funny how the brain keeps working even when you’re not.

Many months ago, I had built a tiny REST API service purely for backwards compatibility. As most of you know, 3Speak still supports email-based logins. That meant there would always be users who preferred that flow, even though the new 3Speak frontend @kesolink has been building doesn’t rely on it.

At the time, it was a simple service. One of those “set it and forget it” pieces of code that you assume will live out its days untouched.

Fast forward a few months, and it’s quietly become a core part of the backend.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call it the heartbeat—but it’s definitely the pancreas now.

Yes… pancreas feels about right.

As of today, that same service now handles email compatibility, ban checks, verifications, plays and views. On top of that, it also acts as a bridge to the old Studio. Thanks to it, the profile page can now display all your videos: published ones, deleted ones, scheduled uploads, and even videos still waiting to be published because they were uploaded from the mobile app.

All in all, a ridiculously productive morning—and all because I listened to my body and actually got some sleep.

Maybe I finally learned the lesson.

Or maybe… just maybe… today was a fluke.

— MenO