

A pragmatic approach to Google AppEngine - nl
http://nicklothian.com/blog/2010/11/23/a-pragmatic-approach-to-google-appengine/

======
trotsky
_think of it as an integration server for a legacy API you are integrating
with: data inside it isn’t going to go missing, but you should expect your
connection to it will break at any point. You need to isolate your users from
it, protect you application from it and consider carefully how to protect your
data from outages._

I get that in terms of practical advice - but the biggest thing I've been
wondering in this whole GAE debate is why you'd select a service where failure
is such a norm. Is it solely a cost decision because GAE beats someone like
AWS by such a large margin? Theoretical development costs seem like they'd be
much lower on platforms where you expect lower error rates.

~~~
fraserharris
The single largest benefit of App Engine is that Google does the sysadmin. I
would prefer that Google's highly paid, top 1%, employees are responsible for
the servers than whomever I could afford to pay. ;-) If your application fits
with the App Engine paradigm, then it can be a great and inexpensive platform.

~~~
loewenskind
Where is this myth coming from that Google employees are highly paid? That's
_never_ been the case as far as I know. The number I'd always heard was 10-20%
below market because "ZOMG, IT'S GOOGLE!". As far as top 1%, that's a
meaningless metric and I've heard they don't even try for that anymore anyway
(e.g. people complaining of a lot of "riffraff" coming in.

------
nikz
"All too often a single HTTP request will have 4 or 5 database queries in it,
and that is regarded as normal."

Is this really normal for a Java app? A typical Rails app (either built by
myself or someone else) would have tens of queries in a request and still
complete in under 1s. That was my experience with PHP too.

~~~
jasonkester
That was the final nail in appengine's coffin for me. You get one query per
page, preferably a get by id, and you'd better not want to do anything fancy
with the result either.

Need more? It's simple. You just port away from appengine. Or you jump through
the insane hoops the author describes just to get your mildly complex pages
composed and out the door.

