Cloud Computing : Languages Supported by Google App Engine

Languages Supported by Google App Engine

Author: Kaushik

As we learn about the basics of writing a application on Google App Engine a critical aspect to understand about the App Engine is its language support. It is critical to understand that being a Cloud environment there are limitations on what the App Engine supports. It is critical to understand the difference between a Hosting Provider like Rackspace which can provide support for any platform, language or environment as against a Cloud Platform like the App Engine which would have limitations in terms of what it supports.

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 Google currently supports the following languages:

Java:

• App Engine runs the Java Web Applications in a Java 6 environment


• App Engine supports frameworks like Struts 2 and Spring MVC


• The App Engine will invoke the Servlet class of the application to handle requests


• The Java application executes in a Sandbox environment


• While the Application can execute code and store data in the App Engine Data Store, service the web request and prepare responses


• However the Application cannot write to the filesystem, open a socket or access another host directly, spawn a sub-process or thread or make system calls


• The supported set of classes are here in the JRE Class Whitelist


• Download the App Engine Java SDK which includes a development server and includes all the services on the App Engine including the Data Store.


• If you are using Eclipse download the App Engine plugin for Eclipse

Python:

• App Engine runtime environment uses Python version 2.5.2


• The python environment includes support for standard python libraries


• Third party frameworks like Django are supported


• Since the App Engine provides a sandbox environment the following are not supported, opening a socket, writing to the file system and making system calls


• Only pure python is supported, extensions written in C are not supported


• APIs are available for access to the Datastore, Google Accounts and Email services


• The App Engine Python SDK includes a server applications which provides a complete App Engine environment on your computer.


• Download the App Engine SDK for Windows

Other JVM Languages (Groovy, Scala, JRuby, Clojure):
All aspects mentioned against Java applies to all the JVM based languages as well.

More details available in the article on the Technology Trends Blog - Languages Supported by Google App Engine

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/online-education articles/languages-supported-by-google-app-engine-2797427.html

About the Author

Kaushik Raghupathi is a senior IT Professional and Project Manager working out of India. Over the years he has worked on numerous IT projects with large sized teams. He is personally very fascinated around Learning methodologies in general and specifically around Community Based Learning. He is currently experimenting the concepts by working with students in this area.

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