Code in the Cloud (Pragmatic Programmers) [Paperback]

Mark C. Chu-Carroll (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2011 | Series: Pragmatic Programmers

One of the most exciting recent changes in the computing world is cloud computing. Cloud computing is a dramatic shift in how applications are developed and used---and even in what applications are. With cloud computing, developers are no longer building applications that run on a user's desktop computer. Instead, they're building services on the network that can be used by thousands of users at the same time.

Cloud services are an exciting opportunity for developers: the cloud is a platform for creating services, a new kind of application that can reach more users, and provide those users with more capabilities than a desktop application ever could. Building applications as cloud services also makes them scalable: cloud applications can easily and smoothly adapt from running on a single computer for a single user to running on thousands of computers for millions of users.

Code in the Cloud will teach you what a cloud service is, and how it differs from traditional applications. It will show you how to build a cloud service, taking advantage of the services that AppEngine makes available to you, using iterative development of a simple application to guide you through the different aspects of AppEngine development, using either Python or Java.

Through the process of working on a simple application, you'll learn about how to build an application as a service; how to manage persistent data using AppEngine; how to build dynamic, interactive user interfaces that run in a user's web-browser; how to manage security in a web application; and how to interact with other services running in the AppEngine cloud.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Mark Chu-Carroll is a software engineer at Google. He's been working on programming languages and software development tools for close to 20 years. In his free time, he's the administrator/developer of Scientopia.org, where writes the blog Good Math/Bad Math. You can visit his blog at http://scientopia.org/blogs/goodmath.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf; 1 edition (April 29, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934356638
• ISBN-13: 978-1934356630
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #920,493 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very shallow coverage of the Google App Engine, June 30, 2011

By 

Maksim Khrapov (Austin, TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Code in the Cloud (Pragmatic Programmers) (Paperback)

This book is not for experienced developers. It is not for inexperienced developers either. The only way I can rationalize this book is by imaging how the author is holding a hand of a very young child guiding him through the development of the child's first web page. It is really very frustrating. The writing is lucid and clear. Everything is covered. The book even has a chapter on CSS. The breadth of the book is very good, but the depth is so shallow, I can't help shaking my head. If you have been developing web apps for any length of time, you have nothing to learn from this book.

Often times I read reviews on Amazon about books that have great content, but are poorly produced. This book is the exact opposite. It is well produced, well written, but its content is worthless. I'm giving it 3 stars because I can't deny that there may be audience out there for this book - very very inexperienced developers just starting out. Maybe they will find it useful.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good basic intro to Google App Engine, January 5, 2012

By 

GradualStudent (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Code in the Cloud (Pragmatic Programmers) (Paperback)

This provides a basic introduction to the Google App Engine, in Python and Java. It roughly parallels the online tutorials on the the Google site, but develops a bit more in depth, and so I found it to be a useful complement working through the book over a week or so.

I liked this book for pretty much exactly the same reason a prior reviewer panned it -it provides intros to a number of basic languages and frameworks, such Python, CSS, Django, Java, AJAX. An advanced web developer should pretty quickly skim/skip those sections, and a basic developer (like me) would find them familiar and reinforcing.

The printed book leaves a few things out (e.g. import statements at the tops of the program files) so I needed to use the companion source code available online (rather than being able to skim the book and type the examples in myself to make sure I was really following step by step).