Feedback on using Google App Engine? [closed]

Question

Looking to do a very small, quick 'n dirty side project. I like the fact that the Google App Engine is running on Python with Django built right in - gives me an excuse to try that platform... but my question is this:

Has anyone made use of the app engine for anything other than a toy problem? I see some good example apps out there, so I would assume this is good enough for the real deal, but wanted to get some feedback.

Any other success/failure notes would be great.

Answer 1

The "App Engine running Django" idea is a bit misleading. App Engine replaces the entire Django model layer so be prepared to spend some time getting acclimated with App Engine's datastore which requires a different way of modeling and thinking about data.

Answer 2

Take a look the the sql game, it is very stable and actually pushed traffic limits at one point so that it was getting throttled by Google. I have seen nothing but good news about App Engine, other than hosting you app on servers someone else controls completely.

Answer 3

I used GAE for my flash gaming site, Bearded Games. GAE is a great platform. I used Django templates which are so much easier than the old days of PHP. It comes with a great admin panel, and gives you really good logs. The datastore is different than a database like MySQL, but it's much easier to work with. Building the site was easy and straightforward and they have lots of helpful advice on the site.

Answer 4

One of the compelling reasons I have come across for using Google App Engine is its integration with Google Apps for your domain. Essentially it allows you to create custom, managed web applications that are restricted to the (controlled) logins of your domain.

Most of my experience with this code was building a simple time/task tracking application. The template engine was simple and yet made a multi-page application very approachable. The login/user awareness api is similarly useful. I was able to make a public page/private page paradigm without too much issue. (a user would log in to see the private pages. An anonymous user was only shown the public page.)

I was just getting into the datastore portion of the project when I got pulled away for "real work".

I was able to accomplish a lot (it still is not done yet) in a very little amount of time. Since I had never used Python before, this was particularly pleasant (both because it was a new language for me, and also because the development was still fast despite the new language). I ran into very little that led me to believe that I wouldn't be able to accomplish my task. Instead I have a fairly positive impression of the functionality and features.

That is my experience with it. Perhaps it doesn't represent more than an unfinished toy project, but it does represent an informed trial of the platform, and I hope that helps.

Answer 5

This question has been fully answered. Which is good. But one thing perhaps is worth mentioning. The google app engine has a plugin for the eclipse ide which is a joy to work with.

If you already do your development with eclipse you are going to be so happy about that.

To deploy on the google app engine's web site all I need to do is click one little button - with the airplane logo - super.