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Comment by untog | Hacker News Reader

> (Too many AWS "devops" people protecting their jobs?)

I don't think so. A good while ago GAE was incredibly limiting - it certainly was when I tried it. Python only (maybe also PHP?), forced to use Google Cloud whatever for storage, etc. By comparison, AWS was using MySQL databases and EC2 boxes that let you use whatever language you wanted.

I know things have come a long way since then, but the reputation persists.

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Agreed; GAE's initial feature set was not great, and I think some of that launch stink unfortunately still sticks. As a counterpoint, you see lots and lots of love on HN for Heroku, which is a PaaS in much the same vein as GAE.

GAE vs. EC2 is kind of the wrong comparison though... GAE is kind of more like AWS Lambda, or maybe bit like ECS or Elastic Beanstalk (and even then not really).

> Python only (maybe also PHP?)

They now support Python, PHP, Java, Go.

And in beta, "flexible environment", which is like elastic beanstalk but more sensible: Python, Java, Go, Node.js, Ruby, <random docker images>.

While they are java keywords as we know them this is not a complete jdk, so many (almost single good one) libraries dont work. I remember spending a week trying to port itext pdf generation lib to gae. While it worked we got concerned by the legal issues of us riping code out of sun/ibm/harmony jdks to add missing jdk classes.

Java here is a pure marketing effort to convince a clueless manager saying hey we got java!

> Java here is a pure marketing effort to convince a clueless manager saying hey we got java!

What if there exist Java-based system that somehow can be deployed to GAE with minimum changes...? (e.g.: not needing itext)

What if there exist a company that the majority of developers prefer Java?

> Python only (maybe also PHP?),

I think the order in which GAE added languages was Python, Java, Go, PHP.

It's not protectionism; it's ignorance? ;)

Ignorance about getting locked into an ecosystem its harder to get out of? Hardly.

But heh! You do you, I'll keep my platform agnostic config management thank you very much. Life's too short to be beholden to any one vendor.

There is really no lockin at all if you use e.g. Flask via the WSGI interface. That is the beauty of it.

You can downgrade to manally managed servers with the the same codebase.

> You can downgrade to manally managed servers with the the same codebase.

Or you spend the few extra hours upfront wrapping your app in config management so it can run on any bare VM.

Don't be lazy! Not being able to run anywhere is technical debt. Unless you're running a hobby site that generates no revenue; in that case, do whatever.

YAGNI. Do it when you know that you need it.

YAGNI does not apply to risk mitigation.

I think Google would let us know in advance if they ever decided to retire AppEngine.

Reputations are hard to shake. When it launched GAE was one big vendor-lockin, and we all avoided it.

When GAE launched I found it to be a cool toy, played with it a little and dismissed it - way too much lock-in.

After revisiting it the past year.. I don't really understand why the in comparison pathetic AWS Lambda gets so much more attention, for instance.

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