Test spin: Google App Engine

One of the joyousnesses of being a Web computer programmer is heading to a dinner party, a haircut, or a reunion and fielding the pitches for
everyone's dreaming for a superb Web application. Everyone is always happy to cut you in for 5, 10, maybe even 15 percent
of the equity if you just construct out the Web land site that's kind of like a combination of Twitter, AltaVista, Eliza, TurboTax,
and the corner pharmacy, but cooler.

Google App Engine is meant for dreamings like these. You compose a spot of codification in Python, customize some HTML, and bingo, you've
got your database-backed dynamical Web land site up and running in a few short minutes. The magic come ups when the human race starts flocking
to your Web application, and Google's cloud of computing machines quickly adapts to the load, handling everything the public demands. There's no demand for you to purchase servers, loading balancers, or particular DNS tables. Google's application cloud manages all of the
grungy deployment headaches.

[ See also and ]

I played around with the App Engine SDK and, certain enough, developed and deployed applications on my desktop with just a few
proceedings of work. I didn't upload them to the cloud because I didn't do it into the beta program, but I was able to simulate
the experience on my business office server. The millions of hits haven't shown up yet, but it have only been a few hours now. It works
and it is quite simple.

Google me this
Type A trickier inquiry is deciding whether this is really what a hereafter Web application really needs. There is small uncertainty that
App Engine do it simple to acquire incoming data, do some decisions, shop it in a database, and then travel on. The more than complicated
inquiries are often political, technical, and almost aesthetic. There will be a figure of computer programmers who look at App Engine
and run with excitement, and there will be many who joust their caput like a domestic dog that can't understand his master.

Being a Python lover certainly helps, but it isn't necessary because the linguistic communication isn't that much different from the other
scripting languages. A good computer programmer should be able to switch gearing quickly and easily. There are rumours that Google has
a figure of other linguistic communications waiting around the corner, but there are equally good statements that this may not be happening
as soon as some fans would like.

Java programmers, in particular, are used to being known as providing the most scalable and flexible applications because
the linguistic communication and the API are some of the most sophisticated ensembles around. The J2EE criterion nurtured tools that simplified
some of these problems, even though it never really turned out to be as simple as the gross sales literature promised. Today, Java's
edification is probably hurting the linguistic communication as much as helping it. A speedy study of Web hosting services shows that shared
hosting for JSP applications gets around $10 a month, while Python shared services can be as small as $2 a month. The
JVM may rush things up and supply better service, but it come ups with a brawny memory footprint. If the brutally competitive
Web hosting concern can back up five Python land land sites for every Java site, then perhaps Google is more than interested in the long
tail, the niche Web sites, than the large iron.

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Simon Peter Wayner is contributing editor of the InfoWorld Diagnostic Test Center.