Improve your App Engine skills with Google Developers Academy
By Wesley Chun,
Developer Relations Team
Cross-posted with the Google App
Engine Blog
Are you developing on App Engine today or interested in learning how to use it? If you've gone
through all the great
App Engine
docs and Getting Started tutorials (
Python,
Java, or
Go)
but want to take your App Engine skills a step further, then Google Developers Academy (GDA)
is the place to go! We
launched
GDA this past summer at Google I/O 2012, with content for beginners as well as
seasoned developers. What can you find on App Engine in GDA today?
If you’re interested in getting more background on what cloud computing is and where App
Engine fits into that ecosystem, then this intro class (
Introduction to Google App
Engine) is for you. Once you’re done with this class, you’ll be ready to tackle the
Getting Started tutorial, and after that, move on to the
App Engine 101 in
Python class.
While some of the material found in App Engine 101 is similar to what's in the Getting Started
tutorial, the 101 class targets developers who skipped the tutorial or completed it at some
point in the past but don't want to repeat the exact same thing. The main differences include
the following changes to the tutorial's content:
- Use of the Python NDB API
- Jinja2 templates
- Discussion of data consistency and datastore indexes
You can use the relational MySQL-compatible
Google Cloud SQL service as an
alternative to App Engine's native non-relational datastore. Some applications do require a
relational database, especially if you’re porting an existing app that relies on one. In this
case, you want to learn about Cloud SQL and how to use it with App Engine. That’s why we have
the
Using Python
App Engine with Google Cloud SQL class.
Of course, Google is best known for search. With App Engine's powerful
Search API,
you can index not only plain text, but also HTML, atoms, numbers, dates, and locations
(lat/long).
Getting Started with the
Python Search API is a two-part class that will indeed get you started: in the first
part of the class, you’ll create an application using a variety of data and learn how to index
such data (using "documents"). In Part 2, you’ll learn how to execute queries as well as how
to update your indexes when you modify your data.
If variety is what you're after, then look no further than the newest class in GDA:
Getting Started
with Go, App Engine and Google+ API. You will not only learn how to create an App
Engine app using the
Go programming language, but
also learn how to connect to the
Google+
API with the
Google
APIs Client Library for Go.
These are just a few examples of the types of classes you'll find in GDA. We also have content
that features many other Google technologies, including Android, Chrome, YouTube, Maps, Drive,
and Wallet. We invite you to swing by for a visit soon.
+Wesley Chun (@wescpy) is author of the bestselling Core Python books and a Developer Advocate at Google, specializing
in cloud computing and academia. He loves traveling worldwide to meet Google users everywhere, whether at a
developers conference, user group meeting, or on a university campus!
Posted by Scott Knaster,
Editor
