title: jQuery read AJAX stream incrementally?
body: <p>I have read <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6093103/jquery-ajax-display-data-as-it-comes-in">this question</a> but it doesn't exactly answer my question.
  Unfortunately, it looks like things have changed in in the XHR object since I last looked at AJAX, so it is no longer possible to directly access <code>responseText</code> before it is finished being populated.</p>
  
  <p>I have to write a page that uses AJAX (preferably jQuery, but I am open to suggestions) to retrieve CSV data via HTTP from a server I have no control over.  The response data could be quite large; a megabyte of text is not uncommon.</p>
  
  <p>The server is stream-friendly. Is there still any way to get access to a stream of data as it is being returned, directly from JavaScript?</p>
  
  <p>I do have the option of writing some PHP code that lives in the middle and uses some sort of "Comet" tech (long-polling, EventSource, etc), but I would prefer to avoid that if possible.</p>
  
  <p><em>In case it is relevant, assume for this question that users have the latest version of Firefox/Chrome/Opera and old browser compatibility is not an issue.</em></p>