3 ms·

Probably not, AppScale has been around for years now. GAE's main customer is Google itself as far as I know, so I don't think they have any problems with tract

by RyanZAG 13y ago

Probably not, AppScale has been around for years now. GAE's main customer is Google itself as far as I know, so I don't think they have any problems with traction. They certainty aren't priced or have the features necessary to get much traction outside Google at any rate. They're a premium service with very harsh restrictions and poor portability. I gave them a try for awhile, but ultimately they have too many drawbacks and have been plagued with terrible issues such as 20sec+ start up times on GAE/Java. It's just not a great option considering you can get the same performance as ~50 GAE instances with a single dedicated host at 2-4 order of magnitude less cost. AppScale itself is pretty interesting though, but without the Google Bigtable backend, most of the forced restrictions don't make much sense and actually decrease performance and reliability compared to just developing for a linux VM directly.

unz 13y ago
Not to get argumentative, but I often come across people trashing app engine and I just don't get it. I think it's absolutely great and how software development should be done, They should be teaching it to everyone and it should be the default - you start with app engine on any project and only choose something else if it can't be used. And it's about as cheap as you could make something like that, If google itself finds it valuable, that's a argument in favor, not against, google having some of the best software developers around. The only limitation currently is it doesn't have postgresql. (I don't have anything to do with google. I just wish more people used it so more features could be added, and more open source software written for it, and I'd benefit from that).
- sazpaz 13y ago
  I think it's absolutely great and how software development should be done, They should be teaching it to everyone and it should be the default - you start with app engine on any project and only choose something else if it can't be used. Curious about your argument here. Care to explain?
  - unz 13y ago
    Let's say you're a college student or career changer who just learned python. You can write a script, upload it, and have the world use it for free. You then learn sql and build complex apps. Learn about bigtable and build a viral app that scales to anything. Learn golang and make your python code more efficient. And you can do this all free to start off with. The alternative - learn linux, web servers, db admin, security. Or php/mysql and pay shady hosters $20 a month and buy domain name. If you're experienced and know all about servers etc, you can now ditch all that knowledge and outsource it to someone else and focus on higher value things.
    - rbanffy 13y ago
      It also encourages you to write scalable applications - no in-request long operations, queues, eventual consistency, no filesystem access dependencies, planning for failure on every level etc. Using App Engine is a course on best practices in web development.
- tlarkworthy 13y ago
  I also love GAE. ITS FREE, for sizeable usage (if you profile your DB). It does push and pull via channel API. SSH configuration is easy as it gets. I have not really had a problem with speed. I have a game on it that does 400ms client -> sever -> client.(authentication done in parallel thread) You can put Django on it. ITS FREE!
  - arvin 13y ago
    I also love Google App Engine. I have a paid iOS app that uses GAE, and so far I get by with the free plan.
dougk16 13y ago
Curious as to when you last tried out GAE. I've had a wonderful experience so far over the last 2 years. My instances never take longer than a few seconds to start up... in fact it's sometimes spooky how fast they do. "...with very harsh restrictions and poor portability" You can say the same about web development, but the real question is if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. As a one-man-band GAE is almost a necessity for me, allowing me to focus purely on code. As far as portability, I'm religious about wrapping any GAE-specific code/paradigms so I can hop onto EC2 or whatever pretty easily if I need to (actually did need to once). Certainly if I was leading a large team, we would explore more efficient and cost-effective options, but for me it's perfect. There is also Google Compute Engine, which may mitigate the restrictions of GAE...haven't tried it myself yet though.

by RyanZAG 13y ago

unz 13y ago

Not to get argumentative, but I often come across people trashing app engine and I just don't get it. I think it's absolutely great and how software development should be done, They should be teaching it to everyone and it should be the default - you start with app engine on any project and only choose something else if it can't be used. And it's about as cheap as you could make something like that, If google itself finds it valuable, that's a argument in favor, not against, google having some of the best software developers around. The only limitation currently is it doesn't have postgresql. (I don't have anything to do with google. I just wish more people used it so more features could be added, and more open source software written for it, and I'd benefit from that).

sazpaz 13y ago
I think it's absolutely great and how software development should be done, They should be teaching it to everyone and it should be the default - you start with app engine on any project and only choose something else if it can't be used. Curious about your argument here. Care to explain?
- unz 13y ago
  Let's say you're a college student or career changer who just learned python. You can write a script, upload it, and have the world use it for free. You then learn sql and build complex apps. Learn about bigtable and build a viral app that scales to anything. Learn golang and make your python code more efficient. And you can do this all free to start off with. The alternative - learn linux, web servers, db admin, security. Or php/mysql and pay shady hosters $20 a month and buy domain name. If you're experienced and know all about servers etc, you can now ditch all that knowledge and outsource it to someone else and focus on higher value things.
  - rbanffy 13y ago
    It also encourages you to write scalable applications - no in-request long operations, queues, eventual consistency, no filesystem access dependencies, planning for failure on every level etc. Using App Engine is a course on best practices in web development.
tlarkworthy 13y ago
I also love GAE. ITS FREE, for sizeable usage (if you profile your DB). It does push and pull via channel API. SSH configuration is easy as it gets. I have not really had a problem with speed. I have a game on it that does 400ms client -> sever -> client.(authentication done in parallel thread) You can put Django on it. ITS FREE!
- arvin 13y ago
  I also love Google App Engine. I have a paid iOS app that uses GAE, and so far I get by with the free plan.

dougk16 13y ago

Curious as to when you last tried out GAE. I've had a wonderful experience so far over the last 2 years. My instances never take longer than a few seconds to start up... in fact it's sometimes spooky how fast they do. "...with very harsh restrictions and poor portability" You can say the same about web development, but the real question is if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. As a one-man-band GAE is almost a necessity for me, allowing me to focus purely on code. As far as portability, I'm religious about wrapping any GAE-specific code/paradigms so I can hop onto EC2 or whatever pretty easily if I need to (actually did need to once). Certainly if I was leading a large team, we would explore more efficient and cost-effective options, but for me it's perfect. There is also Google Compute Engine, which may mitigate the restrictions of GAE...haven't tried it myself yet though.