What is streaming, and how is it different from polling?
Answer out loud or in your head first, then compare.
Answer
Streaming means data arrives gradually instead of waiting for the complete result. It can be a video, a large file or successive fragments of a model's text. Polling means sending a new question every so often: “is there anything new?”.
When generating text, streaming lets you start reading earlier. But it doesn't have to shorten the time to finish the whole job. A single fragment received from the network doesn't have to be a complete message or complete JSON. The program has to recognise data boundaries. Polling is sometimes simpler and is enough when an update every few seconds is acceptable.
Why it matters: The offer mentions streaming; the term covers more than just chat UI.
Possible follow-ups: Why can't you run JSON.parse on every network fragment?
How did it go? Be honest — “Not yet” puts the question on your review list.
Practise in code
- Reading SSE events — runs tests in your browser
Further reading
- Node.js: Backpressuring in Streams(opens in a new tab)Docs; accessed 22.10.2026. Flow, drain and limiting memory use.