First I wanted to thank you guys for your advice. It's definitely insightful and i'll be practicing more and more so I can get use to the new environment. Peter: At this time your abstract advice is good because I don't have a specific application domain in mind. I'm use to building apps from the bottom up as you describe. I usually first model my data by first identifying the objects involved. So now I need to adopt a new approach. I'll definitely try thinking about the application first.
On Sep 11, 7:20 pm, Peter Recore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I second uprise's idea of practice makes perfect. But if you're > looking for a different way of approaching your data, maybe this will > help: When I think of a relational DB, I think of building my > application bottom up - starting with a nice neat normalized > structure, and building my application from there. When I think about > bigtable, or scalable apps in general, I try to think about my > application as a series of actions that my user will be doing. I ask > myself what data will I need for each request, and how can I organize > my entities and the relationships between them such that I can get all > the data I need for that request with a minimum of fuss. > > Another little thing for me is terminology. Using the term Entity and > Entity Groups vs rows and columns reinforces for me a mental picture. > When I think rows and columns, i think of one giant centralized table, > with all my data in a huge tower of rows. When I think Entities, I > picture little blobs of Entities organized into Entity Groups, > scattered all over a datacenter, each Group with its own private > server ready to serve it up. > > That was all pretty abstract. If you wanted to post an example of a > particular application domain you are trying to model in App Engine, > maybe we could brainstorm a little on how you would actually model > it. > > -peter > > On Sep 11, 6:22 pm, uprise78 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > The only thing I can suggest is that you watch the videos of the > > Google talks (2 or 3 were on Big Table) then do what I've been doing: > > > - make some apps > > - load them with fake data > > - fail miserably with your model design > > - try again > > > My brain is finally starting to leave the relational world and I must > > say I am really liking Big Table. I'm not sure if it's because its > > something new or if I like the structure or what... --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---