Oh my, I was given the impossible task of writing a hardware resource allocation algorithm to produce encoding XML config from the UI in JavaScript. Think of a

Oh my, I was given the impossible task of writing a hardware resource allocation algorithm to produce encoding XML config from the UI in JavaScript. Think of a hardware device needing to efficiently transcode 80 SD or 12 HD (mix and match) video streams (plus audio - stereo/dolby) on varying encode cards (6 max), all from a drag and drop interface and without disrupting existing encoding allocations to prevent glitches while it reconfigures. Long story short, this had to work in IE8 and not block the UI to get it done and no plugins. I wrote some crazy way of doing the work in chunks using a setTimeout to get it complete. The project was a success but I stated very firmly that this was a job for the device, not the UI in future versions. Hard when the device in question only had a 300MHz CPU. Those were the days.