Time to start working with other folks again

After some reflection on the last year of doing solo software development, I’ve come to the conclusion that working solo does not allow for maximum productivity, that maximum productivity can only be achieved when working as part of a group, that I a get a lot of satisfaction from being maximally productive, and thus it [...]

Compile C and C++ (and Python) code for the Flash platform

Just discovered Adobe Alchemy, which allows C and C++ code to be compiled for the Adobe Flash platform. For me anyway, this shines new light on the Flash platform, as this allows apps to be developed for Flash in widely used general purpose programming languages, which in turn allow the re-use of existing libraries [...]

The AppEngine platform needs more tools

While Google’s App Engine is a platform just as things like Windows, *nix, or Sony’s PlayStations are, it is a new one that is sorely missing numerous tools that are readily available on other platforms. For example your OS has at least has command prompt and most likely a graphical file explorer that will [...]

Space-Based Architecture for AppEngine

Several posts ago I mentioned that I was waiting to see which cloud provider would be up to hosting Project Fangorn first.  In my last two posts (one, two) I talked about some of the issues with testing web apps on the GAE platform, but I didn’t mention what it was I was actually testing.
At [...]

Grey box testing web applications deployed to Google App Engine

Last post I stated:
Due GAE’s limitations on CPU time/cycles and an overall maximum limit of 10 seconds to fulfill a request a non-trivial set of unit tests will exceed the quotas if they are all run at the same time, so its necessary to run them in separate requests.
But in the two tests I’ve [...]

Unit testing web applications deployed to Google AppEngine

While the GAE SDK does provide the ability to run your web application locally, I’ve found that that the SDK’s local datastore doesn’t work precisely the same as the real one. Specially I’ve found that the local one is more permissive then the real one so its possible to get your app working locally [...]

Waiting to see if App Engine or an alternative gets there first

After tracking down numerous alternatives to Google App Engine after hitting a wall on Project Fangorn, I looked at the most promising alternatives in more depth. Here is what I found.
GigaSpaces

Using GigaSpaces XAP would mean–at a minimum–creating Python bindings to their C++ API and re-writing my data model. Actually running on their EC2 [...]

Google App Engine scalability that doesn’t just work

Now that I’ve got enough of Project Fangorn’s features implemented for it to be playable, I spent some time reflecting on the experience of utilizing Google App Engine’s datastore and it strikes me that there are things about it that actually don’t scale and its API does not provide it-just-works (IJW) scalability. In theory [...]

Debugging – Komodo IDE vs WingIDE vs PyScripter

I just added the following update to the section titled “Komodo vs PyScripter vs WingIDE – Running and Debugging” of my recent post titled “Komodo Edit vs Komodo IDE vs WingIDE vs PyScripter”:
While debugging Komodo IDE does not show you the current value of any variable if you mouse hover over it. Both PyScripter and [...]

Komodo Edit vs Komodo IDE vs WingIDE vs PyScripter

Komodo Edit vs Komodo IDE
Komodo Edit is an free dynamic language editor put out by Active State, while Komodo IDE is Active State’s commercial dynamic language IDE. The two share a common project system, so although I had installed and used Komodo Edit first, when installed Komodo IDE and opened it for the first [...]