Build exciting, scalable web applications quickly and confidently using Google App Engine and this book, even if you have little or no experience in programming or web development. App Engine is perhaps the most appealing web technology to appear in the last year, providing an easy-to-use application framework with basic web tools. While Google's own tutorial assumes significant experience, Using Google App Engine will help anyone get started with this platform. By the end of this book, you'll know how to build complete, interactive applications and deploy them to the cloud using the same servers that power Google applications. With this book, you will:

• Get an overview of the technologies necessary to use Google App Engine

• Learn how to use Python, HTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), HTTP, and DataStore, App Engine's database

• Grasp the technical aspects necessary to create sophisticated, dynamic web applications

• Understand what's required to deploy your applications

Using Google App Engine is also an excellent resource for experienced programmers who want to acquire working knowledge of web technologies. Building web applications used to be for experts only, but with Google App Engine-and this book-anyone can create a dynamic web presence.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 8 Ratings

a self-contained book on programming - 2009-07-22
Reviewer Rating:
I've been programming for 33 years, so in theory I shouldn't like a book that wastes pages explaining what HTTP and HTML are. Nor should I thrill to the first section in the Python chapter, which is called "What is Programming?"

How come I like this book so much then?

It is a self-contained 240-page book on programming. A smart motivated person with no experience could sit down and build a functional cloud app. If you had a friend who wanted to see what the life of a computer nerd was like, this is a great book. Is it as useful as the Google App Engine online docs? Not for an experienced programmer, but for the novice it is nice not to have to refer to a dozen interlocking books and Web sites in order to get "hello world" working.

The world needs more computer programming books like this.

Should be called HTML for dummies - 2009-06-26
Reviewer Rating:
This book is TERRIBLE. As others have mentioned, 2/3 of the content feels repurposed from an early-90s text on HTML.

For example, each chapter has end-of-chapter exercises. Among them:

1) Give a brief history of the major phases of the Internet

2) What is the purpose of the alt atrribute on the img tag?

3) What is the purpose of the area of the HTML document?

or later ..

4) What data was the Google Bigtable initially developed to store?

and in CHAPTER EIGHT ... of eleven

5) In an HTML table, what is the tag for a "table header" which labels a column of data?

Really?

This is the best O'Reilly could come up with? O'Reilly books have traditionally catered to an different audience than the dummies series. I'm far from an advanced coder, but this book contains nothing of value that couldn't be found on the App Engine introductory pages on the Google web site.

Save your money. Spend 30 minutes looking over the App Engine web site or watch one of the free intro videos and you'll know more than this book begins to cover.

Should be called: Web development for noobs, has little to do with Google AppEngine - 2009-06-20
Reviewer Rating:
First of all, half the book is dedicated to the most cursory intros of Python, HTML, CSS, and HTTP. I remember that back in 1995 there were a lot of useful books in the market that covered just these topics, and I can't vouch for how good this book is on that front since these are not new technologies and standards to me. Really "Web 101" though.

However, even after the first half of the book when the Severance (the author) gets to AppEngine, the coverage is far less detailed that anything that can be gotten online. There is the most cursory of chapters on the Datastore for instance-- which is where the real heavy lighting of GAE takes place-- and nothing beyond the simplest guest-bookey toy apps are covered.

This book seems to be along the lines of recent O'Reilly titles that are leveraging the brand from the days when it used to mean "so worth it that you'll wonder how you did without the book" (a la Programming Perl, Unix Powertools, Dynamic HTML, and even the Java Servlet book). GAE falls more into the RSS, podcasting etc. books that are a complete waste of money and perfectly good trees.

Too bad too because someone still needs to go out and write the "Programming Perl" equivalent for GAE.

Don't buy this book - 2009-08-19
Reviewer Rating:
This book is hard to follow - the code examples are built progressively throughout the chapters. If the code is available in one place I haven't been able to find it. The first few chapters are about what html is and and what css is - nothing to do with AppEngine. If you skip these chapters you will still have to go back through them to piece together the code so you can get to the starting point on the AppEngine chapters. This is one of the worst technical books I have seen in a while. Save your money.

Useful Textbook - 2009-09-29
Reviewer Rating:
I use this as my textbook in my class on learning to design web pages, and I have found it to be easy to understand and useful, especially with a teacher to supplement when I have questions, and the extra materials on the webpage that goes with the book. The HTML, CSS, and Python were the necessary tools I needed to learn first in order to use App Engine. Some of the other reviewers seemed to have expectations from "O'Reilly, and were therefore disappointed. I don't know anything about what "O'Reilly" books are supposed to be like, so I didn't have any expectations, and maybe that helped.

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