Google app engine and the read-write-execute web
Google’s App Engine cloud service is launched, and it reflects a very different philosophy than Amazon’s. First of all, as we are used to with Google, the first bit is free; this should get a lot of small users over the hump who were hesitant to start the flow of funds (and $75/month minimum for a persistent presence) to Amazon. For many purposes, the free account will be enough.
Secondly, it is very much in the direction of the next generation of the web: the read-write-execute web. The read-write web made data first-class, enabling two-way communication; the rwx-web makes functions first class. In this environment, not just the data displayed but the code executed on a rwx-web site is user-contributed.
Google provides a sandboxed platform, development environment, a Python runtime, and APIs to link to persistent storage and Google services (authentication, mail, etc.). This removes a lot of complexity for developers and allows many scalability issues to be dealt with by Google engineers, at the platform level.
I was delighted to see their choice of Python: it is a remarkably clear language, and well suited for web applications. Google’s endorsement of Python through employing the BDFL helped put some corporate power behind the language, but if App Engine catches on it could really vault Python to the next level in terms of acceptance. It also strikes me as particularly suited to the kind of abstraction they are offering.
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