Google App Engine PHP Runtime now available to everyone

[nacs]

This is probably going to sound a bit harsh but is adding general PHP support in 2013 newsworthy? Pretty much every 'cloud' provider has provided support for PHP for years now.

Not only that but listing things like "ability to easily read and write files from PHP" and "support for [..] mbstring and mcrypt" as new features makes me less inclined to try App engine for any PHP work as it seems even the most basic things like writing files and mcrypt require App Engine-specific code.

I'd much rather just deploy to Amazon's EC2/Rackspace/generic VPSs than have to add App engine specific changes to my code.

[dragonwriter]

PaaS's are basically hosted specialized frameworks, and as such usually require framework-specific code. App Engine is Google's PaaS offering, and most of your issues seem to be "I don't want a PaaS, but prefer an IaaS or VPS".

As Google has an IaaS offering (Compute Engine), it seems odd that, given those complaints, you'd compare their PaaS offering against other provider's IaaS offerings.

[ajessup]

Writing to files is hardly App Engine specific. Here's an example:

$fp = fopen("gs://my_bucket/some_file.txt", "w"); fwrite($fp, "Hello"); fclose($fp);

[ing33k]

I have to agree on other providers supporting PHP supports for years, but this is a good news for PHP devs and companies. PHP is still not completely accepted in big companies, just the news that Google app engine supports PHP will lead to some confidence to invest in PHP and that the language is here to stay .

[vargalas]

It was the most requested feature. I also asked it (amongst many thousands of others). And now I also feel, that it's a bit late... You have so many great companies to choose from nowadays. Great service, good infrastructure, etc. Google is great also, but it's a bit too late, isn't it?

[ryan-allen]

I wouldn't host anything of importance on GAE, since Google has this odd fascination with shuttering services with zero recourse for its user-base.

[ajessup]

Hey folks - App Engine actually has an explicit deprecation policy spelled out to make sure this can't happen. See https://developers.google.com/appengine/terms

[petersmagnusson]

honestly, i thought HN crowd was above continued "omg reader shut down google can pull the plug on anything".

(a) App Engine specifically (and Google Cloud Platform in general) is being sold to enterprise as well, with SLA and deprecation policies.

(b) App Engine has been around since 2008 and is growing VERY strongly.

(c) Even if worst case happens, fine, move your app to somewhere else. Deprecation is officially a year, plenty of time to move. Any company can deprecate any products. GAE has huge usage (over 3 million applications), and we have two (and counting) compatibility partners (CapeDwarf and AppScale) that you can move.

(d) GAE does not lock you in. Won't rehash arguments here, see: https://plus.sandbox.google.com/u/0/110401818717224273095/po...

cheers,

P.

[codonaut]

They do have a history of that, but AppEngine has a huge footprint right now, and Google is only expanding it's cloud platform with Compute Engine, redoing UI, etc. They're clearly investing a lot here, I don't think they'll close this as easily as Google Checkout or others

[elq]

I'm under the impression that app engine is heavily used inside of google and its use is being evangelized.

This leads me to believe that it won't be killed

[mountaineer]

That, or drastically changing it's pricing.

[jmillikin]

Which paid services have Google shut down?

[data_app]

That is the talking point of Google haters. Sounds like I am listening to Hannity on Hacker News.

[neals]

Sometimes I worry. All this time I spent learning to maintain my own server, even though I am definitely a developer-first, is it wasted when PaaS are getting more common. Am I holding myself back by sticking to my own setup or am I keeping things cost- and performance efficient? Will this be an issue when I (finally) really need to scale up?

[prottmann]

If you scale up, you wish you didnt do the failure of running an own "cost- and performance efficient" solution. We did the same failure for many years.

If you scale up, normally you did not have time to look for better solutions, because you need your time for your product and customers and not for your server. The problem is that you then loose customers or slow down the growth and that cost more then some bucks for a better cloud solution (and yes, cloud cost more).

[guidopallemans]

What is it that Google has with Jetbrains? First they move their Android dev to intellij, now this...?

[gfosco]

They probably have a lot of respect for their tools. Jetbrains has some incredible products. WebStorm, PHPStorm, ReSharper, AppCode, etc.

In this case, though, it looks like Jetbrains wrote a plug-in for PHPStorm, and Google is just mentioning it as a good method.

[yareally]

I believe the Android team members at least have always favored Intellij based on the comments I've seen praising it in the Twitter Feeds prior to Android Studio's announcement and also that it's always been supported along side Eclipse as a way to easily import the AOSP source into an IDE (though only if you look in the source itself) if you choose to do so.

[tlarkworthy]

I use GAE with python a lot. But you can't find forum software not implemented in PHP. I wonder how easy it will be to rewire existing PHD apps for GAE?

One serious issue is caching gets. Those rack up your bills in no time unless you memcache stuff.

Interesting stuff though.

[ajessup]

You can use many forum products today if you use Cloud SQL as your storage service (and it's pretty cheap, it starts at ~$10/month).

eg. phpBB - http://fredsa.allen-sauer.com/2013/07/standing-up-phpbb-inst...

[justinmk]

> you can't find forum software not implemented in PHP

Worth mention: http://www.discourse.org

[dancecodes]

I just saw some lines from GAE for PHP and saw very inconsistent and not quite code.

All modules use require_once... well, well...

And other many issues...

But looks as massive code. Maybe translated automatic.

[mortehu]

> All modules use require_once... well, well...

Why on earth is that a problem?

[smartmohi]

How to host PHP web application on GAE for free is explained in this tutorial. http://www.tinywall.info/2013/10/12/google-app-engine-php-wi...

[dancecodes]

why not use something base of PEAR coding standards ?

public function foo($bar)

{

  //
  //return (bool) $bar;
  //

}

This can help: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

http://pear.php.net/package/PHP_CodeSniffer/

and enable flymake php linting

[dancecodes]

Why you use multiple namespaces in single module? It is not good practise and smell. Official documentation don't recommend this.

[jsnk]

Please work on supporting Ruby now.

[pekk]

Bizarre that they would have gone for PHP before Ruby... Anyway, App Engine just jumped the shark, so Rubyists should know they don't need it

[sebastianavina]

and brainfuck

[rjknight]

I assumed from the title that this would be about Google open-sourcing their PHP runtime.

[hardwaresofton]

long live php!