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Google Compute Engine available for everyone, App Engine adds PHP

googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com

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Re: Google Compute Engine available for everyone, App Engine adds PHP

#41

Post by cramsdale »

salimmadjd wrote: post #25
cramsdale wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our goal is to advance computing (via services such as HRD, Cloud Datastore, BigQuery, and Go) in ways that align with existing developer practices (investments in Java and now the release of PHP). There's no point in releasing amazing solutions if there is a huge barrier to entry.

Which customers are you going after? People who want to play around with "hello worlds" with PHP or people who actually build powerful stuff. Either case, help me understand why PHP was a better choice vs. Javascript? If the question is barrier to entry. Then javascript should have the lowest. Anyone doing any web development needs to do something in HTML/Javascript/CSS. Additionally you could have made the case for…

I'm assuming that you're actually talking about Node and not just HTML + JS. Ultimately it wasn't a choice to do one and not the other, it was a choice of which to tackle first (and PHP had some technical advantages which allowed us to move faster). Ultimately we want to surface, or allow others to surface, any runtime in a fully managed way. Yes, Node, Ruby, C# are often discussed (as are many others, including moving Go to GA). We're investing, we'll get there, and this is only the first of many steps.

Re: Google Compute Engine available for everyone, App Engine adds PHP

#42

Post by JoeKM »

tekacs wrote: post #10
yogo wrote: post #2

LOL at adding PHP support to app engine almost 5 years later. PHP gets a lot of bashing but you can't deny its popularity, as evidenced by the number of stars. https://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=1...

Popularity, yes. I'd argue it largely comes from amateurish developers, though. It can be used at scale, of course[1] but surely it's popularity is as a result of the hordes of amateur developers and shoddy PHP apps, hacks, script repositories and general, unmaintainable spaghetti code? braces for downvotes (I did try to be fairly balanced, to be fair) [1]: the wisdom of doing this left to the reader. Thought: ah, my…

I never understood the simultaneous hate of PHP and praising of JavaScript.

They're both awful languages that are popular because amauteur programmers can easily get started and churn apps. There is just as much, if not more, horribly written spaghetti JavaScript out there, even by Rails and Python developers, as there is horrible PHP code.

The only reason people don't belittle JavaScript (as much) is because there are no other options. If there were, I think JavaScript would easily be the next PHP (and for good reason).

Re: Google Compute Engine available for everyone, App Engine adds PHP

#43

Post by [deleted] »

pjscott wrote: post #38
fletchowns wrote: post #35

Given Google's reputation of awful customer support, why would anybody want to locked into their platform, especially when you have to do so many things the "app engine" way?

If you have an application that happens to fit nicely into the App Engine Way, it's a pretty slick environment for deployment.

[deleted]

Re: Google Compute Engine available for everyone, App Engine adds PHP

#44

Post by threeseed »

papsosouid wrote: post #8

I know there's google people floating around HN, does anyone know what the priorities are like as far as adding more services is concerned? I've been planning on launching on AWS, but I'd prefer google. But there's still tons of services google doesn't offer (or I can't find reference to at least). It is basically just alternatives to EC2, S3 and the database thing right now right? Are there plans for replacements fo…

It's been years since Google actually released something useful on GAE. All while AWS has blown it away with an array of new systems e.g. SWF, EMR, Glacier, Transcoder.

I always liked what Google was getting at with GAE i.e. a simpler, more cohesive AWS. But it just doesn't seem like Google has its heart in it. And we all know what happens to products like that at Google.

Re: Google Compute Engine available for everyone, App Engine adds PHP

#45

Post by umsm »

TheHydroImpulse wrote: post #28
umsm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For pedantic hackers like us, sure, it's garbage, but for the average person that just wants to get things done, it is pure gold. I disagree. The developers of Wordpress are not "the average person". There are too many production sites that run on PHP to say it's garbage.

Wordpress is garbage. Just because there are a lot of production sites built or using Wordpress doesn't mean it's good. Wordpress is popular because of it's community, use of PHP which allows you to host it on many providers, and a ton of themes and plugins. Wordpress is probably the worst spaghetti code I've ever seen (we'll, close).

Most of the arguments are biased opinions and can't really be defended. But... if you don't like wordpress, why not assess projects such as Symfony2 or Drupal?

Re: Google Compute Engine available for everyone, App Engine adds PHP

#46

Post by zafirk »

rtanaka wrote: post #17
i_am_good wrote: post #5

I can't seem to find the registration form, how does one get started?

I just signed up here: https://gaeforphp.appspot.com/

Whoops, I thought the question was about Compute Engine. Yes, you can sign up for PHP on App Engine at the link you provided.

Re: Google Compute Engine available for everyone, App Engine adds PHP

#47

Post by cramsdale »

salimmadjd wrote: post #21
bradleyjg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the single most requested feature on the bug tracker by quite a bit. It's not something I want, but apparently there are quite a few people who do.

Is this cumulative requests from the past 5 years? Also what people request and what google's vision is are two different things. Who are they targeting with this PHP stuff. Yes sure, for free-tier stuff, I'm sure lots of kids playing around with PHP would love to have a sand-box to play around. But this move seems inconsistent with their prior action that signaled a move toward enterprise sales. Also, it feels like…

Google Drive / apps script integration is a great idea. Unifying our storage offerings across the entire company is a great idea too (but an aside for this conversation). I disagree with the "get something out" mentality, though. Shipping a fully managed runtime that scales as well as Java, Python, and Go, that is hardened, and is secure enough that we'll run it next to Gmail, Search, Geo, etc. is no easy task. It's not something you decide to do on a whim a few weeks before i/o.

Re: Google Compute Engine available for everyone, App Engine adds PHP

#48

Post by dzent »

salimmadjd wrote: post #25
cramsdale wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our goal is to advance computing (via services such as HRD, Cloud Datastore, BigQuery, and Go) in ways that align with existing developer practices (investments in Java and now the release of PHP). There's no point in releasing amazing solutions if there is a huge barrier to entry.

Which customers are you going after? People who want to play around with "hello worlds" with PHP or people who actually build powerful stuff. Either case, help me understand why PHP was a better choice vs. Javascript? If the question is barrier to entry. Then javascript should have the lowest. Anyone doing any web development needs to do something in HTML/Javascript/CSS. Additionally you could have made the case for…

While PHP has low barrier to entry and there are a lot of people who tinker with it, PHP still powers a lot of production websites, far and beyond the hello world apps or the 'pictures of my dog' wordpress blogs. Your implication that there aren't "powerful stuff" websites running on PHP is just simply not true.

Re: Google Compute Engine available for everyone, App Engine adds PHP

#49

Post by jtreminio »

umsm wrote: post #45
TheHydroImpulse wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wordpress is garbage. Just because there are a lot of production sites built or using Wordpress doesn't mean it's good. Wordpress is popular because of it's community, use of PHP which allows you to host it on many providers, and a ton of themes and plugins. Wordpress is probably the worst spaghetti code I've ever seen (we'll, close).

Most of the arguments are biased opinions and can't really be defended. But... if you don't like wordpress, why not assess projects such as Symfony2 or Drupal?

Because quality projects like symphony Symfony 2 does not fit into his works view of php.

Re: Google Compute Engine available for everyone, App Engine adds PHP

#50

Post by tkw8 »

namityadav wrote: post #18
papsosouid wrote: post #8

I know there's google people floating around HN, does anyone know what the priorities are like as far as adding more services is concerned? I've been planning on launching on AWS, but I'd prefer google. But there's still tons of services google doesn't offer (or I can't find reference to at least). It is basically just alternatives to EC2, S3 and the database thing right now right? Are there plans for replacements fo…

When it comes to my (virtual) infrastructure, I want to go with a platform that's stable (including in terms of price), well-tested by others who have similar needs as me, and has a lot of documentation / articles / questions online. And I would never go with a platform that doesn't have all other services that I may need (as you mentioned). Why wait for google replacing SES when you can just go with AWS? MHO, obviou…

GCE seems like another "me too" product. The PaaS thing didn't work out so well for Google or Microsoft. When they realised AWS was much more popular with IaaS they simply set about copying AWS. They are years behind AWS and by the time they catch up with what AWS has today the world would have moved on to bigger and better features.

So many new "me too" clouds, Azure, Rackspace, HP, even Oracle, and now Google.

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