pipelining data isn't new (Unix pipes!), but it's an very elegant architecture for IO heavy servers, and highly underused because of (perceived) implementation complexity. Many devs don't realise they can create streaming pipelines, and end up with complex systems with multi level caches, and work queues because thats 'how it's done'.

Theres nothing specific about node (architectures scale not frameworks), I'm just saying that node makes this kinda of architecture relatively simple. Use the correct tool for the job.

also checkout lazy haskell lists, which provide a very powerful (and related) abstraction at the language level.