Comments on: Thoughts on Google App Engine

By: Joshink

Joshink — Sun, 18 May 2008 22:18:28 +0000

I’ve been working with AppEngine for about a week, and I can tell you that it is an awesome platform. I’m using Django because that what I normally develop in anyway, and in many ways, there ORM is way better than Django’s. You don’t have run syncdb or anything, and the Expando model is unbelievable.

The fact that you can code and not have to worry about the scaling is such a relief. You simply build and test locally then publish. It’s seriously that simple. Python really shines when using AppEngine and I’m very glad it was the first language they supported. It will be interesting to see what languages they pick next or if they just continue to develop the Python API.

By: Steven Roussey

Steven Roussey — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:15:50 +0000

SmugFS?

By: sam

sam — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 21:29:18 +0000

I’m amazed that the open source dbs have not tackled the problem head-on with an oracle rac killer… The db scale problem simply does not exist with oracle and db2 - just attach another box when load increases. Shared storage is becoming an open source commodity but the dbs are waaaay behind the curve in using it effectively.

By: Jorge Oliveira

Jorge Oliveira — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:42:06 +0000

“I’m hopeful other languages get supported, too”

I’m trying to get php support on app engine

http://i-want-php.appspot.com/

And while I’m waiting, I’m learning something about python…

By: Andy Maule » Blog Archive » Google app engine

Andy Maule » Blog Archive » Google app engine — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:19:01 +0000

[...] More in-depth discussions here and here. [...]

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:31:03 +0000

For those of us who like Python this seems ideal.

I’ve been watching Amazon EC2 for ages, although it seems a good service it’s just that little bit beyond most developers and small time users. If I wanted to host a small application on EC2 then it’s going to cost me at least $75/month just to keep it running, as well as the additional costs for bandwidth and S3 usage. Even with EC2 I have to code my application to run on Amazons platform given that there’s no permanent disk storage apart from S3, the only permanent database available is SimpleDB.

Google has got it right by offering a basic version for free. Developers won’t have to sign up with their credit cards to create small applications. I could create a basic site on there for free, if it gets popular then I’ll probably end up paying (and can probably pay for it at that point).

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 05:26:22 +0000

Does Google promise any latency #’s or CPU resources.

What I mean is, is Google promising the service will be “fast”?

By: Brett Morgan

Brett Morgan — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 04:34:14 +0000

Hmmm. On one level, there is no lock in because they have open sourced the apis. If another provider wants to build something that is GAE compliant, it would be reasonably easy to do. The trick, as always, would be the underlying tech - GFS / BigTable.

Could this be built out on top of Hadoop? Probably. Using Jython, and some magic, I can see how to get most of the way there.

The real change this is going to bring is bringing home the reality that building large dynamic sites doesn’t need a honkin SQL server. And this is a good thing.

By: Thoughts on Google App Engine « turnings

Thoughts on Google App Engine « turnings — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:47:42 +0000

[...] on Google App Engine 8 04 2008 Thoughts on Google App Engine: I’m more than a little concerned, though, by how much vendor lock-in there is with App Engine. [...]

By: Herbert

Herbert — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:28:19 +0000

Portability is not really a problem. It’s the kind of thing people have been papering over for years with postgresql and mysql. Someone will create a compatibility wrapper.

Google and Amazon: you should peer your data centers and provide free traffic to customers of both. There really is very little overlap between the two services, and it would really help to kick-start new websites, which would be in the interests of both companies, to enable folks to mix ‘n match between the two.