One of my favorite things about the SDK is the fact that it works offline. When I'm without Internet access on a train, bus, or plane, I can still develop and test my application. I usually work with my browser open, one tab pointed squarely at localhost:8080 and another open to the App Engine documentation. Until recently, the documentation presented a bit of a challenge when I was without network connectivity. But now, we've released the App Engine documentation as a downloadable zip file.
On a related note, our documentation is now licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License (except as otherwise noted). For full details on licensing see http://code.google.com/policies.html. As Dan Sanderson explains on the discussion group,
"These licenses permit you to re-distribute the documentation, and to distribute derivative works. For example, you can translate the documentation into another language, and distribute the translation. You can also convert the documentation to a different format (such as PDF), and distribute the new format. "
We're also planning to bundle the documentation with future versions of the SDK.
Please join us on August 28th for a Google App Engine Hack-a-thon in the Emerald City.
The events will include training on the major features of Google App Engine, including data modeling, the App Engine APIs, some aspects of Django, and how to mashup App Engine with other web services. Google Engineers will be on hand to help and to answer questions throughout the day.
For a better idea of what goes on at our hack-a-thons, see our previous posts about the New York, San Francisco, and Chicago hack-a-thons.
Throughout the day, we will be building a complete App Engine application, and sharing the code with you so you can code along with us. If, on the other hand, you already have a great idea for what to build, bring that idea along. If you already have a great idea for what to build, bring it along and go for it! Even better, prepare sketches, designs, web page mock-ups, etc. ahead of time, and use the hack-a-thon to develop your idea into a working application that you can share with the world.
At the end of the day, we'll invite you to share your App Engine applications with the group.
We will provide facilities, power, refreshments and experts to help you learn to use Google App Engine and write your application. Just bring your laptops, ideas and enthusiasm to complete the mix.
The Seattle hack-a-thon will take place Thursday August 28, 2008 from 10AM-6PM. It will be held in Google's Seattle Office at 651 N. 34th St.
Space is limited so Sign Up now.
I've returned from the App Engine hack-a-thon in Chicago a Superfan ofthe App Engine community. We had lots of fun meeting App Engine developers, but why let me tell you about it? A couple of attendees wrote great summaries of the day: A Ruby on Rails developer giving Python a whirl, and a developer who worked on testing with App Engine. We saw people working on iPhone apps, OpenSocial and App Engine, and even a chat application! See the pictures below:
While I was away I kept up with all the App Engine goings on with a little help from a spy, and it's nice to know that I can exclaim my whereabouts while I'm gone using Harper Reed's and Aaron Salmon's excellent app!
Many developers are finding PyDev + Eclipse a great way to develop on AppEngine, and IBM's developerWorks has a great article on creating mashups doing just that.
Submissions for our Open Source page continue apace, with the newest contributions for fans of REST, microblogging, and reCAPTCHAs.
Enjoy the heat!
Having spent the past two weeks tracking a hamster across America, creating collaborative pictures, and planning plenty of parties, I think it's time to get together another community update.
We were excited to find that one of our developers has started tracking App Engine performance, and hope to see more along these lines in the future. Developers continue to contribute information relating to the bulk loader, including an article that discusses UTF-8 and HandleEntity. And finally, Adobe AIR and Flex developers might be interested in this article about creating a photo application on Google App Engine.
Those of you who aren't content to just read may wish to get your hands dirty with some Open Source App Engine code. We've had 10 more additions to our Open Source project page, including projects that will interest all you Scrabble players, radio listeners, and RESTful developers.
Lastly, the forum discussion continues to keep pace, with topics that include IP geocoding, domain configuration, and continued discussion about the cap on indexed properties for an entity.
Keep letting us know what you've been up to!
Please join us on July 31st for a Google App Engine Hack-a-thon in the Windy City.
The events will include training on the major features of Google App Engine, including data modeling, the App Engine APIs, some aspects of Django, and how to mashup App Engine with other web services. Google Engineers and Product Managers will be on hand to help and to answer questions throughout the day.
For a better idea of what goes on at our hack-a-thons, see our previous posts about the New York and San Francisco hack-a-thons.
Throughout the day, we will be building a complete App Engine application, and sharing the code with you so you can code along with us. If, on the other hand, you already have a great idea for what to build, bring that idea along. Even better, bring along anything you can prepare ahead of time (sketches, designs, web page mock ups, etc.) and use the time and information provided to develop your idea into a working application, then share it with the world.
We will provide facilities, power, food and refreshments and experts to help you learn to use Google App Engine and write your application. Just bring your laptops, ideas and enthusiasm to complete the mix.
The Chicago hack-a-thon will take place Thursday July 31st, 2008 from 10AM-6PM. It will be held in Google's Chicago Office at 20 W. Kinzie St.
Use promo code NEXT1720 to save $300 off general admission
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