

Ask HN: Any startups applying for YC funding using the Google App Engine? - mel_llaguno

I've seen a lot of startups using Rails, but are there any out there that apply for YC funding that are using something more enterprise focused for their application? If you've considered using the GAE and choose something else, what was the deciding factor?
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js4all
Rails is a framework. The equivalent on AppEngine would be django (Python) or
J2EE (Java).

So, no. Don't make you framework decision based on what your platform provider
has to offer. Do it the other way. Make a decision on your framework, then
choose a provider.

If the question is provider vs. own hosting? There is nothing wrong with using
a paas-provider for a startup. Make sure there is no lock-in.

~~~
mel_llaguno
Actually, I was considering using GWT over the AppEngine. It provides a lot of
supported functionality (such as fast Image serving, OAuth & OpenID,
BLOBStore, Memcache) that seem a bit of a pain to integrate with ROR. Those
features in conjunction with the free quota limitations (for approximately 5
million page views per month) make it seem like an ideal low investment
platform that can scale one demand. I'm just wondering if anyone chose
ROR/Django over GAE and what their reasoning might be.

~~~
nl
Well RoR has got good libraries for image manipulation, OAuth (note that
AppEngine _doesn't_ have OAuth built in), OpenID and Memcache.

Blobstore really only exists to work around the lack of file access in
AppEngine.

The pricing is something of an advantage, but don't choose it on that alone.
If you know Java (or Python) already then it's worth using, but it's probably
not going to give you enough of an advantage to switch platform.

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nl
I'm considering it (applying, not using AppEngine. If I apply I'll use
AppEngine for some parts of it).

I do Java AppEngine work in my day job, so if you have questions let me know.

(When you say "enterprise focused" do you mean your application is enterprise
focused, or do you mean GAE/J is? Because there are some issues with using GAE
for enterprise software and it's important you have considered them)

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mel_llaguno
Can you elaborate? I'd be curious to know what limitations you've experienced
that work against GAE for enterprise deployments.

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nl
(To be clear, I'm not using AppEngine for enterprise software. But I've done
lots of enterprise software in the past, and I'm doing AppEngine now)

The main problems are as follows: 1) Data privacy. _Usually_ this is just
people worrying unnecessarily, but sometimes there are legal requirements
about where customer data is stored. These may be jurisdictional or geographic
requirements.

2) Integration issues. Enterprise software is all about integration. The
AppEngine integration story is getting better, but you'll need to understand
the SAML based single-sign-on support that is built into Google Accounts
and/or implement it yourself, and you'll need to become familiar with Secure
Data Connector (<http://code.google.com/securedataconnector/>) to integrate
with private data sources.

~~~
mel_llaguno
Thanks for the info. I'm pretty sure I won't need SAML for my application, but
the Secure Data Connector is definitely something that I will be looking into.

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wolfrom
We'll be applying with a project that uses Google App Engine, built with Java.
We had originally started with PHP, and had considered Rails, but we found
that we were much more comfortable using Java for our product, which retrieves
and works with very large sets of data.

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minalecs
i know simplenote a recent graduate spoke how they used it to scale.

