[google-appengine] Re: Having doubts about AppEngine
I can definitely sympathize with the sentiments here. I really wish Google did offer better communication. However, I just wanted to point out: Jaiko is a company acquired by Google quite a while back. A TechCrunch post today ( http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/28/jaiku-uncaps-invites-migrates-to-google-infrastructure/ ) links to a previous blog entry, which indicates their intention to convert the app entirely to App Engine: http://www.jaiku.com/blog/2008/04/08/wroom-were-moving-to-google-app-engine/ This seems to be a promising sign of investment in AE on Google's part (although the move was almost certainly made solely for that purpose). On Aug 27, 5:09 pm, javaDinosaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I am starting to have doubts about continuing to develop my > applications for GAE. My concerns are not technical although I have a > some anxieties about transaction data propagation performance. > > My concerns center around Google’s commitment to the App Engine > project. Compared to Amazon’s Web Service forums this place feels like > a technical backwater. Developers hosting on Amazon AWS post > interesting questions and get deep-dive replies promptly from Amazon > staff. Amazon is releasing new Cloud development services monthly yet > all we get is minor patches. > > Here on the GAE forum elementary questions about how GAE ticks go > unanswered for months. Basic roadmap type info such as will we get SSL > or scheduled tasks is missing. > > I just feel that the GAE Team is not building up any development > stream in what should be the last 4 month run up to the year-end > release. Communication with the developer community here is abysmal > compared to the investment in developer relations made by companies > such as Microsoft, Redhat or Amazon. > > What’s happened to the early buzz Google? Has the top bass pinched > half the team to firefight problems on another project? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Having doubts about AppEngine
> The App Engine platform is a way to build massively scalable CRUD-
> style web apps by sticking to a few simple constraints. It's perfect
> for situational apps, one-offs, hobby projects, all of which can now
> survive slashdotting without arcane architectural hacks. What's not to
> love about that? Why criticize it for not being something it isn't
> designed to be?
> I missed where anyone from Google claimed to be looking for businesses
> to develop their commercial applications on App Engine. Do you have
> any pointers to such public statements?
I think App Engine *is* targeting startups and other small businesses
without the time, interest, or money to build a scalable
infrastructure around them.
>From http://blogs.zdnet.com/SAAS/?p=489 -- the AE project manager:
“We’re much more suitable for the consumer marketplace during the
preview release.”
Now let's think about this. Google creates an infrastructure to create
web applications with a seemingly infinite amount of no-hassle scaling
(for a price, of course). Are they really targeting Joe Brown who is
creating a website to share pictures of his new kid with his family?
Of course not. The quota is theoretically capable of serving 5 million
users for free. If we are just talking about mere hobbyists with a few
hits a day, how would users ever exceed the quota and allow Google to
charge them money?!
But if Google is shooting for businesses, why did the product manager
say it's best suited for the consumer marketplace ("DURING THE PREVIEW
RELEASE")?
"...citing as examples the lack of an SLA and the ceilings on usage
that result in a denial of service when exceeding the limits..."
Sounds like two problems that are most certainly going to be fixed
after the preview.
> I don't see how App Engine is "in competition" with Amazon. The
> services (GAE vs EC2/S3/SQS/etc.) are not comparable. Amazon's
> offerings are much lower-level, and require a great deal of tech savvy
> to exploit. I use (and adore) the Amazon stack where appropriate, but
> would never even think of using it for a web app like my wordle.net.
> It would be like building a whole factory, from scratch, to sell
> lemonade from my driveway.
A lot of websites hosted on Amazon are just that--regular old CRUD
apps. GAE doesn't offer anything close to the control that Amazon
does, but I bet there are a lot of Amazon customers that would trade
their control for the worry-free scaling of AE. They both are
attacking the same problem, but very differently.
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[google-appengine] Re: Having doubts about AppEngine
Davide,
I really don't see the Django template language being a valid concern
at all. It is just a library that Google provides, no one is forcing
you to use it.
And further, personally I think that if you find Django templates too
limiting, you probably don't fully understand it. I switched to Django
after coding with Ruby on Rails and PHP, both of which allow you to
embed code right in your templates. It was a difficult transition at
first, but the restrictions placed by the Django template language
make sense, and they encourage good programming practices of the
separation between programming logic and presentation code.
And if you're concerned about reusing blocks of code, the concerns
about {% with %} are only relevant to Django < 1.0, and the devs have
been telling users to use SVN (which is very stable) and not 0.96 for
MONTHS now. (Yeah, AE only supports 0.96 out-of-the-box, but that
makes sense. Why would Google want to track SVN? I just have my own
checkout of Django I use. And besides, Django 1.0 is due for release
next week. I guarantee Google will support it.) And besides, I have
never had to use {% with %}. Most code repetition I come across is
more logically solved with block inheritance.
I strongly recommend you upgrade to the latest Django beta and read
the template docs. And if it really doesn't work for you, there are
plenty of other options.
This post is really about the problems that Google has with
communications about where App Engine is going (and WHEN).
On Aug 30, 4:56 am, Davide Rognoni <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Doubts about Django
> Templatehttp://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine/browse_thread/thread/...
>
> On Aug 28, 12:09 am, javaDinosaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > I am starting to have doubts about continuing to develop my
> > applications for GAE. My concerns are not technical although I have a
> > some anxieties about transaction data propagation performance.
>
> > My concerns center around Google’s commitment to the App Engine
> > project. Compared to Amazon’s Web Service forums this place feels like
> > a technical backwater. Developers hosting on Amazon AWS post
> > interesting questions and get deep-dive replies promptly from Amazon
> > staff. Amazon is releasing new Cloud development services monthly yet
> > all we get is minor patches.
>
> > Here on the GAE forum elementary questions about how GAE ticks go
> > unanswered for months. Basic roadmap type info such as will we get SSL
> > or scheduled tasks is missing.
>
> > I just feel that the GAE Team is not building up any development
> > stream in what should be the last 4 month run up to the year-end
> > release. Communication with the developer community here is abysmal
> > compared to the investment in developer relations made by companies
> > such as Microsoft, Redhat or Amazon.
>
> > What’s happened to the early buzz Google? Has the top bass pinched
> > half the team to firefight problems on another project?
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[google-appengine] Re: Having doubts about AppEngine
Not to start a flame war, but... On Aug 30, 2:34 pm, Davide Rognoni <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 2) """Here on the GAE forum elementary questions about how GAE ticks > go unanswered for months""" > > Also about the template system. You realize that Django templates is bundled with AE, and is actually a part of the Django project? The Django project has a HUGE developer community. Try #django on irc.freenode.net or the django users mailing list. As long as the question sticks to Django-related issues that aren't affected by AE (such as the templates), I guarantee they would be happier to help, and much more responsible than this mailing list. > 3) """Communication with the developer community here is abysmal > compared to the investment in developer relations made by companies > such as Microsoft Redhat or Amazon""" > > Django is free, no investment. Well, let's see... 1. Yes, Django is free (open-source). 2. No, there *is* an investment in terms of time (and thus money) 3. I think you mean App Engine, not Django... Again, Django != App Engine --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Having doubts about AppEngine
On Aug 30, 4:25 pm, Davide Rognoni <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Not Google but: > > “Guido just pronounced: Django is the [Python] web > frameworkhttp://www.cmlenz.net/archives/2006/08/the-python-web-framework So what? Guido likes Django... http://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2006/aug/07/guidointerview/ FYI if you listened to Guido's talk on building Django apps on AE at Google I/O this year, he said that "Django is just one of many frameworks you can use." The talk is available online. On Aug 30, 4:40 pm, Davide Rognoni <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > fromhttp://www.cmlenz.net/archives/2007/06/logic-in-templates > > """How could a custom, sparingly documented, somewhat inconsistent, > and mostly unproven (compared to Python) mini expression language be > any better for template authors?""" I wasn't using Django over a year ago when that was published (just think: that was when oldforms was still in, eeek), but I will say one thing: out of all of the frameworks and libraries I have used, Django is THE best documented web framework I have ever come across. Also, that quote is comparing how proven an entire language is to a mere collection of template tags and constructs... > """In my humble opinion, this kind of “dumbed-down” templating results > in only one thing: more lines of code in the application modules, > lines of code that are really only about presentation, and should be > in the templates. And frustration every single time you need to add > those lines.""" So Django templates aren't for everyone. Django was designed to be loosely coupled so you can stick in your own preferences where desired. On Aug 30, 4:05 pm, "Noah Gift" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I think for new comers to Python, it IS presented as the only choice > as many people would have difficulty "monkey-patching" another > template engine, as there have been issues in getting, to my knowledge > at least, Mako and Genshi to fully work on appengine. It seems like > this new cookbook area would be a good spot to for developers of those > other templates to put their integration recipes: If I wanted to work with PHP and didn't like the fact that it allowed my designers to access PHP, I could certainly choose to use a template language. But of course, it is going to involve overcoming a barrier to implementation. Django templates works great for most people. For those who it doesn't work for, they should be prepared to have to do some extra work. Besides, for beginner's needs, what exactly is it that Django templates doesn't work for? Django templates is incredibly newbie-friendly. As mentioned, the documentation is (IMO) second-to-none, and there are other great resources, like the free talks available online covering Django, and djangobook, which is mostly up-to-date. But still, I don't think this conversation is the appropriate place for this discussion. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Having doubts about AppEngine
The point wasn't to compare Smarty and Django Templates, it was just to show that if you do something different from the "default", no matter what language and platform you are developing for, there is always going to be extra work involved. And for the record, Smarty has been around several years longer than Django. On Sep 1, 3:23 am, LH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm a little bit confused about the discussion php vs django template > at all. > > The most of the posters here should take a look at the no. 1 php > template engine: Smartyhttp://www.smarty.net/ > > Take the documentation of the template syntax, you will see that > Smarty and Django Template are very similar, so similar that I wrote > my first (not so simple) django template without even look at the docs > of django. > > I'm not sure which system comes first [but I heared that it was smarty > one time], django templates or smarty, but who ever was second knows > the other one while planning its own solution. > So a lot of php and python developers have a nearly identical handling > of templates in there projects. > > On Aug 31, 12:36 am, Michael Schreifels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > If I wanted to work with PHP and didn't like the fact that it allowed > > my designers to access PHP, I could certainly choose to use a template > > language. But of course, it is going to involve overcoming a barrier > > to implementation. Django templates works great for most people. For > > those who it doesn't work for, they should be prepared to have to do > > some extra work. Besides, for beginner's needs, what exactly is it > > that Django templates doesn't work for? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
