Google App Engine is a massively-scalable all-in-one application, database, and storage hosting solution released this week by Google. And it has me more excited than I can remember in a long while.
The Google App Engine article by Aral Balkan, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England License.
Here's how it works:
You write your application in Python with a WSGI-compatible web framework via the Google App Engine SDK and upload it to your App Engine account. Then, you sit back and let the world hit your app as hard as it can and let Google handle the rest.
Sounds simple? It is. This is game-changing!
What you're going to see here that you've never seen before is shrinkwrap net apps that scale that can be deployed by civillians. That's a mouthful, but that's what's coming . . . Python is the new BASIC.
I couldn't agree more.
Unlike Amazon's EC2, S3, and SimpleDB, there are no virtual machines to mess with and you don't have to set up and configure three accounts. As a developer, you do what you do best (develop), deploy, and let Google scale your app.
Bigtable for the small fry
The Google App Engine Datastore API gives you access to Bigtable, the same distributed data store that powers Google's own web indexing and Google Earth.
The application platform
I was talking to Dave about it yesterday and he told me how he sees it not as a competitor to Amazon's offerings but to Facebook's application platform. I think Dave's got a great point. Like Facebook's app platform, Google App Engine lets you use an existing user base via Google Accounts and the Users API. That means that anyone with a Google account can log in to your application with minimal work on your part.
(It is unfortunate, but expected, that Google used Google Accounts for this instead of an OpenID based solution. Ryan Berrett has created an OpenID Provider application using Google App Engine that basically lets anyone with a Google account log in to services that consume OpenID. Unfortunately, it appears to be a bit buggy and didn't work correctly for me when I tried it to log in to this blog via ClickPass.)
Flash on the Google App Engine
When used with PyAMF, Google App Engine gives Flash and Flex developers an excellent platform for building and deploying Rich Internet Applications.
If you want to start playing with this now, check out the PyAMF tutorial for Google App Engine.
I just got the User API working with a Flash application and I'm going to document how I did it in my next blog post (along with a simple example to show you how to architect your Google App Engine applications for Flash and Flex that differs a bit from the PyAMF tutorial.)
Enter your Beta, gov'ner?
I'm not on the Google App Engine beta so I can't deploy applications on the platform. If anyone reading this can help with that, I'd definitely appreciate it (and reciprocate by showering the Internets with Flash and Flex-related samples and information.)
The Google App Engine article by Aral Balkan, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England License.
[quote]Every Google App Engine application can use up to 500MB of persistent storage and enough bandwidth and CPU for 5 million monthly page views.[/quote]
This is awesome. What with Android and now this, it seems like Google are hitting the development communities hard with amazing goodies. This is worth *any* developers attention.
My only gripe is that they opted to use Python. Okay, so some people will like this move, but I’ve never much liked the Python language. Why not PHP, Lua or some other popular language? (and no, not Ruby either)
From a performance point of view, it is great to be able to run your app on Google’s infrastructure and I can see why is this so exciting. On the other hand, when it comes to developer perspective I don’t see why I should be excited that instead of some kick-ass hosting built on wide-spread technologies like LAMP where I could run thousands of already developed applications, I need to use Python and some new APIs (I don’t say they are bad but still, Google is forcing me to learn yet another API).
When I try to think of one good reason why Google introduced such a complicated and dare I say developer-hostile model, the only reason I can see is vendor lock-in. Or do I miss something?
Borek
Well, having started to watch the video’s, they point out that Python is currently the first supported language. Ergo, more will be supported later.
@Borek : A good developer will always look into ways in which the Google SDK can be abstracted from the main application code. I’m sure Google has thought about this, and others will develop frameworks that will support this level of abstraction. I started thinking of this as soon as I took a look at the SDK.
Apparently they picked Python as the first language as Google developers use Python a lot in-house (it is one of the three “official” languages within Google; the other two being C++ and Java). Guess it makes sense to support the language you know best from the start as it reduces risks during the development process.
Hi Aral, great to see you’re trying out our PyAMF library with Google’s App Engine. We might be able to get you access to Google App Engine, please email me if youre interested.
Hey Aral,
Thijs said I should touch base with you as I have a few App Engine instances available if you would like one to develop on. Shoot me an email or I will be on the PyAMF IRC server.
My thoughts in _print_ ;-)
http://builtbydave.co.uk/2008/04/13/google-application-engine-vs-facebook-f8/
Sure has got the clock ticking on us ’small fries’ too, Aral. Have a feeling that after Python, Ruby’s next and we’re barely making our presence felt. Talk about head in the clouds…
Best.
alain
http://www.morphexchange.com
Hmmm very intreseting thoughtssesli chat sesli sohbet
I wonder if i am the only one to feel kinda betrayed by Google. Okay, it is no secret that they employ python excessively, but what i feel betrayed for is that, they now enhance pythons spread by motivating as a requisite for using g app eng and what i fear is more people will be switching to Python! :)
Though not a bad thing in total, with the help of its smoothest learning curve ever, i fear the developer-o-sphere will be swamped with more non-zealot pythonees.
i feel like “our” -kinda- “secret” brotherhood will be spoiled of *pop*ularity..
ah,this emotional involvement to non-human things :)
am i the only one?