Developing with Google App Engine (Firstpress) [Paperback]

Eugene Ciurana (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 2009 | ISBN-10: 1430218312 | ISBN-13: 978-1430218319 | Edition: 1

Developing with Google App Engine introduces development with Google App Engine, a platform that provides developers and users with infrastructure Google itself uses to develop and deploy massively scalable applications.

• Introduction to concepts
• Development with App Engine
• Deployment into App Engine

What you’ll learn

• Create processes that are ideal for cloud platforms.
• Design data for the cloud.
• Learn what types of applications are ideal for the cloud.
• Deploy web applications into the cloud.
• Measure the success and health of the cloud.

Who this book is for

Python developers, developers interested in massive scaling, and developers interested in Google or cloud computing.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Eugene Ciurana is an open-source evangelist who specializes in the design and implementation of mission-critical, high-availability large scale systems. As director of systems infrastructure for LeapFrog Enterprises, he and his team designed and built a 100% SOA-based system that enables millions of Internet-ready educational handheld products and services. In 2006, Eugene led the official adoption of Linux and other open-source technologies at Walmart Stores Information Systems Division as chief liaison between Walmart.com Global and the ISD Technology Council. He is known as pr3d4t0r in the java, #awk, and #appengine channels of the Freenode IRC network.

Eugene has contributed to several Java, Linux, and OS X open-source projects and has architected main line of business applications and real-time systems for the largest companies in the world, including Walmart, Bank One/Chase, National Oilwell Varco, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Nortel Networks, Sun Microsystems, IBM, Univex/Celanese, and Nexis/Lexis. He's the author of over 50 feature articles and editorials for major publications in the United States, Mexico, and Europe, while his work has been featured in such publications as eWeek, CIO Magazine, InfoWorld, DZone, EE Times, Nikkei IT, Software Guru, and TheServerSide.com. Eugene is the best-selling technology and fiction author of such books as Developing with the Google App Engine; Best Of Breed: Building High Quality Systems, Within Budget, On Time, and Without Nonsense; and The Tesla Testament: A Thriller.

Eugene's web site: http://eugeneciurana.com

Eugene's blog: http://eugeneciurana.com/blog

Product Details

• Paperback: 164 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (January 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430218312
• ISBN-13: 978-1430218319
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,421,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Read the online Google docs instead, January 27, 2009

By 

A. Andrews (Sammamish, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Developing with Google App Engine (Firstpress) (Paperback)

I was really looking forward to reading this book. I've been working with the Google App Engine from the first week it was released, but as a Python newbie, I still thought I'd get a lot out of a book dedicated to GAE development.

Unfortunately, the book doesn't go far enough beyond the Google online documentation to be useful. The book is thin, but it also uses an incredibly large font size throughout. It's like a junior high school student trying to stretch a book report to meet the teacher's page number requirement.

There are plenty of topics that warrant discussion but are strangely absent. Performance profiling and the performance of the datastore are topics that many developers are struggling with but the book says little or nothing on these topics, and others.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointment, February 15, 2009

By 

Burke (Chester Springs, PA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Developing with Google App Engine (Firstpress) (Paperback)

I was looking forward to this book, but it didn't come anywhere close to my expectations.

On the cover, they claim 168 pages. I guess that's true if you count the table of contents, the dedication, chapter 9 that doesn't give you any actual information on the administration of applications, related titles, copyright, and a couple of blank pages in the total. I count more like 144 pages of big font.

I would have overlooked the length and been more generous with my rating, but what's there just isn't very good. It doesn't try to be any sort of a reference, but it doesn't flow, either. The author uses a bookmarking application to present concepts, but the order and presentation just don't work very well. It comes out as a bunch of random code snip-its, without good explanation.

I learned a lot more from Google's online "Hello, World" tutorial.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Minimal coverage of an exciting topic, October 21, 2009

By 

James Beswick (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Developing with Google App Engine (Firstpress) (Paperback)

Take a look at Amazon's "Look Inside" feature and you should get a sense of what's wrong here: this is one very thin book written in very large font, and won't get you anywhere near to developing and deploying an app on GAE. As another review has said, it's shocking that Google's online 'Hello World' example is more instructive than anything presented here. Additionally, though the author has a background in scaling and it's mentioned several times, there's no practical information given on how to build a Digg-proof app beyond the fact that GAE will handle it somehow.