Live data from Hacker News

Python 3 on Google App Engine flexible environment now in beta

cloudplatform.googleblog.com

11–20 of 49 posts

Re: Python 3 on Google App Engine flexible environment now in beta

#11
post #9
post #4

> you can use the tools and databases you already know and love But not Postgres or Redis? Edit: OK, I'm seeing some references in the docs. Still seems limited to deployment on generic instances though.

You can use Postgres and Redis. :) I'm working on writing new tutorials for both of those, but in the meantime: You can host your own Postgres on Compute Engine [1] or use a hosted provider like ElephantSQL [2]. You can use whatever client library you want to connect to postgres in App Engine flexible. Same story for redis - you can host it on Compute Engine [3] or use something like redislabs. [1] https://cloud.goog…

Both of those third party providers look interesting. Thanks for pointing them out.

Edit:

I notice that ElephantSQL doesn't surface in a partner search but EnterpriseDB does.

https://cloud.google.com/partners/#?q=postgresql

EnterpriseDB seems relatively expensive, even when just getting started (Estimated costs: $891.00/month).

https://console.cloud.google.com/launcher/details/public-edb...

Redis is provided by Click to Deploy, i.e. "Popular open stacks on Google Compute Engine packaged by Google", and is in beta (Estimated costs: $307.80/month).

https://console.cloud.google.com/launcher/details/click-to-d...

Looks like Redis Labs has a trivial free tier, and the 1GB plan is cheaper on GCE than AWS ($57/mo vs. $71/mo). I'm pretty annoyed that I had to create a Redis Labs account to see that though.

Re: Python 3 on Google App Engine flexible environment now in beta

#12
post #2

I'm really glad this big fat blemish is now finally going away. Anybody has a reasonable theory for why this took so long, despite users asking for it for years?

> Anybody has a reasonable theory for why this took so long, despite users asking for it for years? Well, initially, their investment in more runtimes was covering additional languages, not covering more versions of languages they already had. (IIRC, AE started with Python 2, added Java first, and then later Go and PHP.) As that was happening, they gradually shifted focus from building out the old, fairly limited mod…

The architectural switch to the "Flexible Environment" is what I missed. I can appreciate why this broader new approach for language runtimes took some time.

But then again the Flexible Environment seems to be a very different product with different features/characteristics and pricing than what I once knew as "App Engine". I would then argue that Python 3 never came to "App Engine", only to their new product. Which is a valid strategy for Google of course, but now stifled my enthusiasm. Probably I only need to learn more about Flexible Environment style App Engine to become hyped again.

Re: Python 3 on Google App Engine flexible environment now in beta

#13
Really cool. Would be interesting if App Engine becomes a spot for larger framework driven web apps like Django, or if/when ruby is supported, ROR. It could be a very efficient way of doing so because you could have a single instance running with a gazillion gunicorn/unicorn worker processes to distribute the load across processes.

Re: Python 3 on Google App Engine flexible environment now in beta

#15
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anybody has a reasonable theory for why this took so long, despite users asking for it for years? Well, initially, their investment in more runtimes was covering additional languages, not covering more versions of languages they already had. (IIRC, AE started with Python 2, added Java first, and then later Go and PHP.) As that was happening, they gradually shifted focus from building out the old, fairly limited mod…

The architectural switch to the "Flexible Environment" is what I missed. I can appreciate why this broader new approach for language runtimes took some time. But then again the Flexible Environment seems to be a very different product with different features/characteristics and pricing than what I once knew as "App Engine". I would then argue that Python 3 never came to "App Engine", only to their new product. Which…

Flexible environments are significantly worse if your application works on the original style of app engine.

Re: Python 3 on Google App Engine flexible environment now in beta

#16
post #14

This changes everything! Just kidding. Python 3 adoption will continue to be slow, and judging from PyPI stats, nothing to write home about even atm.

I wish there were a clearer delineation between developer downloads on PyPI and automated builds, since it seems there's been a bit of a cultural sea change over the past year or so in favor of Py3. I'd love to know which version humans are downloading.

Re: Python 3 on Google App Engine flexible environment now in beta

#17
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The architectural switch to the "Flexible Environment" is what I missed. I can appreciate why this broader new approach for language runtimes took some time. But then again the Flexible Environment seems to be a very different product with different features/characteristics and pricing than what I once knew as "App Engine". I would then argue that Python 3 never came to "App Engine", only to their new product. Which…

Flexible environments are significantly worse if your application works on the original style of app engine.

Just wondering, why do you think so?

(It wasn't obvious to me why, given a first read of the docs; the fact that applications run in VMs in Flex seems more like an implementation detail. Am I missing something?)

Re: Python 3 on Google App Engine flexible environment now in beta

#18
I recently signed up for a trial and tried to use Google Cloud Platform. Oh my god the UI was amongst the worst I have ever experienced on the web.

Super slow and hard to navigate. Stupid "tutorial". I tried for a good two hours, tried to accept it but finally gave up on it.

Google, cut down on your Angular and material design kool aid and try harder next time.

Re: Python 3 on Google App Engine flexible environment now in beta

#19
Does anyone have any numbers on the cost difference between standard vs flexible app engine usage?

Flexible environment supports any language/environment you want as long as you implement the HTTP endpoints it expects. I would be much more impressed if they brought Python3 to the standard environment which seems to be much more cost effective for many types of web apps. Flexible environment essentially requires you to run a VM all the time, which can get pricey, versus a much more managed sandboxed environment that can sleep and be awaken quickly as needed to serve requests. Also, Python 3.5 would be awesome to leverage asyncio, but that's probably still a bit too bleeding edge.

Re: Python 3 on Google App Engine flexible environment now in beta

#20
post #14

This changes everything! Just kidding. Python 3 adoption will continue to be slow, and judging from PyPI stats, nothing to write home about even atm.

I wish there were a clearer delineation between developer downloads on PyPI and automated builds, since it seems there's been a bit of a cultural sea change over the past year or so in favor of Py3. I'd love to know which version humans are downloading.

Wouldn't Python 3 ALSO have installations doing automated builds though?
Post reply on HN