
"... and now you’re a sharecropper on the Google plantation." - pius
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/04/09/Google-Users-API
======
icey
I don't understand all the hate on Google about GAE. This is not some new and
evil business model. This is just a turn-key system.

Google has been very up front with what it expects and what it will provide; I
don't think there has been any shadiness on their part.

~~~
apathy
I think the idea was that Google should provide everyone with 250K servers,
dark fiber, and a pony, for free, forever; when it turned out there were some
restrictions, all the jilted idealists immediately went ballistic.

~~~
TrevorJ
Agreed. I think that the perception is that Google's biz model is less than
transparent to the uninitiated consumer who doesn't understand what, exactly
they are giving up in exchange for any one of hundreds of free services on the
internet (eyeballs to advertiser, privacy) It's for the good of these huddled
masses that the mavens breathlessly shuttle the news to the masses. "It's
people! Google makes money by delivering people!"

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marcus
Actually because Google is an OpenId provider, I believe with just a bit of
work you can export the application out of the GAE by adding support for
OpenId

------
bootload
_"... You’re not a sharecropper if you’re building around the Apache webserver
and the increasingly-large suite of associated software. Nobody owns it, and
it runs on anything ..."_ ~
[http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePla...](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePlace)

Tims right and he's wrong at the same time. What google has done is quite
interesting. By commoditising the application server software, & reducing the
cost, it means more Startups can quickly move to the market. There is nothing
(yet) that I can see that will stop you moving your code & site if you have to
later on. A big cost in time & money is setting up your own servers. You can
do self hosting but do you have to if it is a time/complexity cost?

The only people who are really squealing are the hardware/software vendors
(Tim works for Sun) and ISP's who have effectively taken a pay cut.

~~~
wanorris
> The only people who are really squealing are the hardware/software vendors
> (Tim works for Sun) and ISP's who have effectively taken a pay cut.

That's not my impression. I've seen some concern from service consumers, as
well. When you buy service from AWS or conventional hosting providers, the
costs are out in the open, and you are paying as you go and free to switch to
something else.

With Google, all the costs are hidden or down the road, which is especially
scary given the lock-in. Does their service get too expensive when you scale?
Don't like Google having full access to your account and traffic data? Need to
extend your application with features Google's platform can't provide? Well,
you'll need to rewrite the back end of you application. And ask all your users
to re-register, since you can't exactly take Google's accounts with you.

Yes, in theory, you can move your site later on. In practice, good luck with
that. Personally, I wouldn't touch this service for anything.

~~~
bootload
_"... With Google, all the costs are hidden or down the road, which is
especially scary given the lock-in ..."_

I'm not going to start advocating this google model is good for everyone. If
fact I'm pretty sceptical of google ~
<http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/tags/google/page2/> but I found this
particular tool good enough, now for me. For example. If I want to get a site
up and running with django, python 2.5, a scalable db, with a domain name with
an isp right now, I'm pretty sure I'd either a) have to host my own, $$$...
(cost of pc, cable, time with admin) or b) get some rack space at an ISP that
has a later version of python (if I use CGI) and django again $$$, $$$. Now
looking at the tools available I'm pretty sure you could get users to register
their details with your application & keep the data & export it later. I
haven't read the license details about this. (there's one problem, checking
for and asking for permission) As for the tools I'm pretty sure you could re-
create the db access on another system.

What I do say to myself is, _"could I prototype an idea here"_ then
investigate moving if I move to the next level that may incur hidden costs.

 _"... Need to extend your application with features Google's platform can't
provide? Well, you'll need to rewrite the back end of you application. And ask
all your users to re-register ..."_

I think you can solve the later problem as suggested above. As for the first.
Well there seems at the moment things you cannot do with this platform.
Computationally extensive applications that use 'C' based code. It appears
what google is offering is the front-end tools that scale. Not the back-end
computational processing.

 _"... The only people who are really squealing are the hardware/software
vendors ..."_

Tim O'Reilly argues this maybe a lock-in play ~
[http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/04/is-google-app-
engi...](http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/04/is-google-app-engine-a-
lockin.html) Until I read the license to verify you have access to your data
I'm less worried about this than google fighting the Internet. I think we are
going to see more "level 3 platforms" which have ' runtime Environments' ~
<http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/09/the-three-kinds.html> so they are not going to
go away. Trying them out might allow you to see a problem to work on
exploiting insight you have gained.

~~~
wanorris
Some reasonable points, especially if you're already committed to Django as a
platform.

BTW, I meant back end as in data store, not computation. From what I
understand, using BigTable differs markedly from using MySQL or Postgres, and
you would have to port to one or the other to leave Google unless you want to
do some serious development work on your data back end.

I hope you're right about being able to salvage your user data, but I would
study both the license agreement and the technical capabilities _very_ closely
on this one. It would be a shame to build an early site thinking it was just a
starting point and then discover that you could never change key aspects of
it.

In any case, good luck with your site.

~~~
bootload
_"... Some reasonable points, especially if you're already committed to Django
as a platform. .."_

Not really. There are some aspects of Django that really suck. Complex
template logic for one . I really appreciated the simplicity of webpy after
wading through the django api. On a side note, friendfeed's (Bret Taylor) ~
[http://bret.appspot.com/entry/experimenting-google-app-
engin...](http://bret.appspot.com/entry/experimenting-google-app-engine)
worked on google appengine. When he built friendfeed he chose webpy as a
starting point. There is a lesson somewhere in there. They key thing is I can
use CGI, webpy or django so I'm not bound to any one choice.

 _"... I hope you're right about being able to salvage your user data, but I
would study both the license agreement and the technical capabilities very
closely on this one. It would be a shame to build an early site thinking it
was just a starting point and then discover that you could never change key
aspects of it. ..."_

Good points I'll have to think about them. The one that will matter most will
be the user information. The app I have in mind is a design tool of sorts that
generates object code for users. I don't think appengine as it is will work
for the back-end ideas I have but who knows if users really want this?

------
dgabriel
Is this seriously a problem? No programmer is forced to use GAE, and if it
seems like you won't do well with it, don't use it.

Tempest in a teapot, indeed.

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davidw
If we're going to rag on Damien for his "lisp as blub" linkbait, I think this
merits the same appellation as well...

------
redorb
This article is weak, it throws out a huge degrading word(s) such as
"Sharecropper" and "Plantation".

\- I don't see any disadvantage of using Google's built in accounts..and in no
way do you have to;I'm tired of all the loud babies in the room!

