4 ms·

I've got to say that I've found Google's swirling messaging around serverless-as-a-service to be frustrating. Originally, it was App Engine, which was great: u

I've got to say that I've found Google's swirling messaging around serverless-as-a-service to be frustrating. Originally, it was App Engine, which was great: upload a bit of Java/Python and off you went. Then that suddenly seemed to get expensive (https://readwrite.com/2011/09/02/google-app-engine-pricing-ange/ https://readwrite.com/2011/09/02/google-app-engine-pricing-a...). Then, about 3 years ago, App Engine seemed to be Docker-only App Engine ("Using the App Engine flexible environment means that your application instances run within Docker containers on Google Compute Engine virtual machines") with little mention of the original upload-some-code App Engine. Now there are the App Engine "Standard Environment" which is in "Beta" and the "Flexible Environment" which is GA. Now it's old-is-new, upload-some-code App Engine by a different name. I think it would have been much more clear if, having to maintain legacy App Engine code+environments, they had released Google App Engine V2 and called "Flexible Environment" the "Container Environment" (but that would have been confusing with "Kubernetes Engine"...). GCP's messaging seemed to have been much more coherent than AWS's but they seem to be catching up. What's next? A Lightsail competitor?

dragonwriter 8y ago
> Then, about 3 years ago, App Engine seemed to be Docker-only App Engine No, when the Flexible Environments were introduced (the Docker-based ones), Standard continued. > Now there are the App Engine "Standard Environment" which is in "Beta" and the "Flexible Environment" which is GA. Standard Environments are mostly GA, what is in beta appears to be the new second-generation Standard Environments (Node.js 8 has been in beta, and now the newly announced Python 3.7 and PHP 7.2 are in some nonpublic pre-GA state.)
hinkley 8y ago
I’m only half paying attention because this screams ‘fad’ and in already busy learning other things, but the longer this goes the more it looks a bit like the 80’s era techniques I learned about in a distributed computing class wayback when. This feels like process migration with some special sauce added. Or a lower cost version of the Actor model. Don’t get me wrong. It’s been too long since we talked about this stuff, but I’m having a hard time perceiving this as the new hotness. Feels more like a refinement.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> Then, about 3 years ago, App Engine seemed to be Docker-only App Engine No, when the Flexible Environments were introduced (the Docker-based ones), Standard continued. > Now there are the App Engine "Standard Environment" which is in "Beta" and the "Flexible Environment" which is GA. Standard Environments are mostly GA, what is in beta appears to be the new second-generation Standard Environments (Node.js 8 has been in beta, and now the newly announced Python 3.7 and PHP 7.2 are in some nonpublic pre-GA state.)

hinkley 8y ago

I’m only half paying attention because this screams ‘fad’ and in already busy learning other things, but the longer this goes the more it looks a bit like the 80’s era techniques I learned about in a distributed computing class wayback when. This feels like process migration with some special sauce added. Or a lower cost version of the Actor model. Don’t get me wrong. It’s been too long since we talked about this stuff, but I’m having a hard time perceiving this as the new hotness. Feels more like a refinement.