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We're still working on rolling a few docs throughout the day. For example - here's the node.js lib:

https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/google-cloud-node#clo...


Of course we do :) We deprecated the original appengine console, and we've moved all of the UI over to the Cloud Developers console:

https://console.cloud.google.com/

It has all of the cloud stuff in one place. Should be a lot nicer to use too :)


With the old appengine console, you just went to one url - appengine.google.com and you found all the links in one place - application, logs, datastore, etc

Since the old appengine console was deprecated, it is difficult to remember the urls for the different services. One has to try and remember multiple urls. It is quite confusing and frustrating.


The golden rule of UI is that if you change it, it will ruin the experience for someone.


Recently there was one liner linked here on how to dramatically improve Angular's speed. Would help that new console too :)


Greetings folks! One of the App Engine PMs here. That couldn't be further from the truth - we absolutely want people to use App Engine. If you want to manage your own infrastructure, Google Compute Engine is great. If you want something that scales automatically, and requires less management - App Engine is a great option. We've actually made a ton of changes recently, specifically on our support for docker based runtimes, new docs, and new runtime support (like nodejs, ruby, python3, etc).

https://cloud.google.com/nodejs https://cloud.google.com/ruby https://cloud.google.com/python .... etc

If you have any questions at all about the service, feel free to ask me anything.


When will App Engine finally upgrade Go to 1.6? It's currently stuck at 1.4.

Also, why the long delay? Is it because of the switch from C to Go in 1.5?


Hm, I tried now with:

l.Infof("version=%s", runtime.Version())

...and it gives me:

version=go1.6 (appengine-1.9.36)


Greetings folks, I'm the PM for Node.js on App Engine. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask me anything!


This appears to still just be a Managed VM, not really App Engine. What is new? This has been around for a while...

Is there any plan to implement Node fully on GAE?


I have one, how can European individuals use the paid version of any Google cloud services? Last time I checked only commercial entities were allowed to use the paid version.


Warning: IANAL. First, sorry for the pain! As an explanation, it's all about VAT (determining it, collecting it, etc.). Outside of Ireland we dump it on you:

https://support.google.com/cloud/answer/6090602

But specifically:

> “Business” status means that you'd like to see a potential economic benefit from your development activities, for example: using the Google Cloud Platform to develop prototypes or applications with a view to generating revenue in the future. Most software developers -- including affiliates, sole traders, self-employed merchants, partnerships, students and others -- use Google Cloud Platform for business purposes.

I can't help you decide what your VAT on the use of our services would be (this is the realm of accounts and lawyers). I know AWS makes a different decision than we do, and we're very aware of the friction (again, sorry!).

Disclaimer: I work on Compute Engine, but again IANAL.


Thanks for your answer, although its worrying we need to have a lawyer around to see how we can signup without accidentally violating my local country's VAT regulations as a developer who just wants to pay and build stuff :(


Apologies you had a bad experience. There's no doubt the original App Engine had some... quirks.

You may want to take a look at Managed VMs. All of the new runtimes are based on Docker images, are entirely extensible, and don't require the use of the original App Engine APIs:

https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/managed-vms/

You can use whatever Database or NPM modules you want.


It's great to see App Engine getting better! I'm exploring it again after trying the original app a few years back and am enjoying the improved interface and abundant documentation and tutorials.

One suggestion: Make a cloud storage product option free up to a few megabytes for hosting small personal sites. Maybe it exists already but I haven't found it.


You can easily run a small personal site on the free tier of GoogleAppEngine. Just google for "app engine static site"

There are a ton of options on what you can achieve inside the free tier. But the simplest one for the use case you seem to require is to author a static html site in a good WYSIWYG html editor and then deploying it as a static site in GAE.


Thank you — I will try this!

Edit: My use case is to move a couple of static sites to a host that supports a secure HTTPS connection by default, which App Engine seems to do: <https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/python/console/using.... I'll try moving one of my sites over and set up SSL with with a certificate from <https://letsencrypt.org/>.


Does Google still patch the stack (kernel, web server, interpreter, database, modules, etc.) whenever security issues are discovered? I always thought that was one of the best bits of the App Engine model.


Currently we patch all the software on the VM, but not the application container itself. We make new base images available, but the user has to re-deploy to pick up these changes.


Is there any notification (email, readable VM version on a server, etc.) when one of those redeployments should occur?


Hi Justin,

I'm currently trying to get my feet wet on GAE. Judging from your statement, are you suggesting that people should look into Managed VMs and maybe skip the regular GAE (or known as the original GAE)?

Perhaps the original GAE will be deprecated in the future?


No, that's not the case. Managed VMs is a more flexible environment than our "GAE Standard" environment, but (at least currently) comes with some of the tradeoffs of a full VM (startup time, minimum size, etc.). If you've got say a vanilla python app that doesn't need custom native modules, GAE Standard is great! If you want to run something we don't currently support, then Managed VMs gives you the flexibility a Compute Engine VM can offer you (run whatever you like).

Disclaimer: I work on Compute Engine, not App Engine but I'm familiar enough with their thinking.


Thanks for the info @boulos. I've been watching GCP division quietly building solid products and ecosystems while the limelight shine towards AWS and Azure to some extend.

I'm also very excited to see GCP people responding to any GCP questions and/or clarifying its past "reputation" with a calm manner ;). Clearly the tide has changed (probably comes from the top too? :)).

Me and my partner are planning to invest a significant amount of time to the GCP ecosystems!


I think technically that command is still hidden lol. You can run it, it just doesn't show up in the docs. We'll be officially releasing that one in a few weeks.


Although "gcloud preview app modules stop <module> --version=<version> is documented, and does the same thing.


You can specify whatever version of Node.js you want to use in the engines section of your package.json:

https://cloud.google.com/nodejs/resources/runtime#engines


Frustrating that it doesn't specify how it gets those versions. Is it always direct from the node folks so it's going to always have all versions or do they have their own cache?


Reading the source code of the docker container they use (https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/nodejs-docker/blob/ma...) it seems like it's reading the available versions from an URL (http://storage.googleapis.com/gae_node_packages/node_version...) which points to some Google hosted storage. So I'm guessing they have some process to update this list after a new release and also caches the versions themselves.


Yep, we update the available versions constantly and just serve them from GCS to reduce download time.

I'll get this documented somewhere.

Disclosure: I work on GCP.


Fantastic, thanks!


Of course there's an SDK! It's here: https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/gcloud-node


Well yes, just not an App Engine SDK :(


What specifically are you looking to do?


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