hebig.org/blog

Google Application Engine: "Write applications in Python using a WSGI compatible application framework, then host them on Google’s highly scalable infrastructure. The most exciting part is probably the Datastore API, which provides external developers with access to Bigtable for the first time" (Simon Willison). Four other parts. Some data points:

• Krzysztof Kowalczyk: GAE is the first Internet operating system.
• GAE means you have to trust Google both with your data and your code.
• Case in point: Kowalyczk says "other companies that should be afraid, very afraid of GAE are hosters of specific applications that don’t have network effects" - like 37 Signals. A Google-built GAE demo app was HuddleChat - "a feature-for-feature clone of 37signals’s Campfire" (Gruber 1). Google pulled it, but still it either means they had no clue, did not care or had "the greenlight for a product launch knowing many in the developer community would likely view Google App Engine as a Xerox machine for copycat product developers" - So "why should small indie web developers trust Google when the first example app is a Google rip-off of a small indie web app?" (Gruber 2).
• This could be huge anyway.
• Runs Django, too.