A Brief Impression of AppEngine
For the past week I’ve been looking at Google AppEngine for a project I have to complete in 2 months. The appeal of AppEngine is considerable. Look at the infrastructure you get for free:
- Up to 1,300,000 requests per day
- Up to 7,400 requests per minute
- 1 Gigabyte bandwidth per day
- 6.5 CPU hours per day
- 500 MB Storage
- Scaling (for when you get Slashdotted) is handled by Google.
What’s the catch?
None really, except that you have to program your site in Python or Java. And that is a catch for me, because I really hate Java. And Python leaves me cold with it’s “There’s one right way to do everything” dogma. Both programming languages are a monumentally bad fit for a free spirit like me. I’ve always subscriped to the Perl motto: “There’s more than one way.”
Python is Cool, Sort of
I really don’t hate Python. I programmed some Zope back in the early days at CareGuide.com (now defunct). I don’t mind Python’s enforced indentation, but really, what’s to love here?
Ruby, of Course
Since time is short, and Ruby fits the Right Side of my brain, I’m going to build the site with Ruby. I may use Rails; I may use Sinatra; I may roll my own. It really doesn’t matter, but the faster I get the framework up, the more time I can devote to the really hard part: the Javascript.
Keep hacking…
I keep coming back to PHP for my projects. I’m not talking about anything Industrial Strength like the Wikipedia or Facebook. I’m talking about the web sites I use to teach my courses. For the last 4 years I’ve had my PHP course content on a custom Rails site that I built when I was crazy about Ruby. It has languished recently, as the chore of reinventing every wheel (CMS, user authentication, etc) has taken its toll.
So this week I installed Moodle, a fiendishly complex bit of PHP that contains everything I need to run all of my courses online. In the domain of online course management, it’s the top dog. And because it’s written in PHP, I feel right at home.
Oops. My bad. Sorry about that, Rails.
Don’t bother to tell me that comparing Rails and PHP is a lousy comparison. PHP and Rails are both DSLs (Domain Specific Languages) written in general purpose languages: PHP is to C as Rails is to Ruby (not mention that Ruby is written in C, too). If you think about it, PHP and Rails really kissing cousins.
When duty calls and there’s work to be done, PHP is my preferred vehicle to get from point A to point B. Here’s how I spend my online/programming time these days.
- 35% Moodle (PHP online course management software): user.
- 25% WordPress (PHP blogging software): user and programmer.
- 15% Cincom Visualworks (I’m learning Smalltalk): programmer.
- 10% phpBB (PHP forum software): programmer.
- 10% Ruby (Generating PDFs from HTML): programmer.
- 5% Lastly, Rails for my course web sites: programmer.
I’ll be the first to tell you that PHP has many, many frustrating design oddities, but once you “get it”, you’ll have more time to kick back, drink some brews, and watch a little b-ball.
Happy hacking…
DHH has brilliantly coalesced the last 15 years of MVC web practices into a Perfect Storm (Rails). He dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s, mercifully allowing us to embalm the template-based MVC web design-strategy, put it into a glass coffin, and ship it off to the Smithsonian.
Here’s my Rails eulogy.
The first time I saw Rails—after doing Perl and PHP web development for a few years—my mind was blown: what would take me a week in Perl, or a day in PHP, could be done in 5 minutes with Rails. At the time I jokingly described Rails as crack for web developers. It’s so good, don’t even try it once!
Rails changed the way I do web development, and whenever I drop back down the evolutionary ladder to PHP, it’s like having dental surgery without anesthetics. Painful! All the repetitious tedium—building infrastructure, writing SQL, connecting to the database, the embedded language—was taken care by a the shiny Ruby black box. Rails is a web programmer’s deus ex machina.
“Don’t Repeat Yourself,” said DHH, and he lived up to his word. Rails nailed the door shut on Web 2.0.
Now that Rails has brought Web 2.0 to its end, can it do the same for Web 3.0? The answer is that Rails is no longer on the leading edge. Rails’ replacement has already dropped while you were trying to get a handle on Rails and Ruby. The new guy in town is Seaside.
Seaside arrived several years ago with little fanfare because it runs on Squeak, a relatively new version of Smalltalk. As you may know, Smalltalk is an “old” language that most of us have only heard the old-timers get sentimental about when they talk about the Good Old Days of the Computer Science Frontier.
It turns out that the Old is New again. It’s time to break camp and move on to the NeXT Level. You can get a head start on your friends (and foes) by checking out this ear-opening Floss interview with Seaside’s creator, Avi Bryant.
Hey, you don’t want to miss the Ground Floor again, do you? Give Seaside look.
The big news from the Rails world is that some major Ruby Masters of the Universe (including DHH, Rails Dictator for Life) feel that porn and erotic images are a cool way to present Ruby on Rails to the public. If you don’t agree with these Ruby Leaders, be prepared to hear “F. U. You’re just a dumb American prude. Get over it!”
CouchDB presenter Matt Aimonetti slapped the crowd in the face with some heartfelt sexism in his amateurish Gogaruco 15-minutes in the spotlight. When some observers had the temerity to be offended and dismayed, they were denounced as prudes because they didn’t get his “sense of humor.” Judge for yourself:
http://tinyurl.com/cukfou and
http://www.loudthinking.com/The argument from Aimonetti and Emperor DHH is that there’s nothing wrong with glorifying the female form. We can all agree with that. And, they go on to state that it’s completely appropriate for Ruby Alpha Male Studs to inject erotic images into business presentations because it’s just a “natural” thing for an alpha male to do. Sure it is! How can we disagree with our Betters? We prudes have to understand that these big-brained, testosterone-driven programmer studs can’t help themselves.
I get shivers waiting for news from RailsConf (the next big Ruby Event). I just know that the CouchDB presenter will employ a smorgasbord of bodily functions to present his product. I’m hoping that he’ll do something “natural”, like urinate on his admirers in the front row, then take a big dump on the stage. Too bad I won’t be there to see it.
It must be great to have big balls like these guys. I wonder, where can I get some of that Ruby on Rails Master of the Universe Kool-Aid they’re drinking?
