In less than 10 minutes, I got a web API working on my tablet using Flask. Compare that to all the hell I went thru with Node.js to just get the fucker to work (read: several weeks), and I can see why people had an easy time with previous iteations of my database class. Flask-API is beautiful, simple, and very easy to use. Why in the name of the Maker's left testicle we were forced to use something as hateful Node.js and nginx is beyond me. This teaches the fundamentals of web APIs (which, I'll grant ya, are important in this day and age) in a way that is not only easy on the eyes, but easy to see exactly what's going on...easier to mentally digest.
Just goes to show that following moronic trends does not mean that you'll be teaching your students fundamental concepts any better. In fact, it actively stymied many of my classmates, because they had to figure out a tonne of esoteric issues (with completely unhelpful error messages, to boot) just to get the damned Node.js crap to work properly.
Guess we can't have students learn the fundamentals without fucking them over, somehow.