By Dion Almaer, Google Developer Programs

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We had the pleasure to talk to some of the Google App Engine team to discuss the recent launch that Dick uses the tagline as "Your apps, our servers". We get to chat with tech lead on the project Kevin Gibbs, product manager Pete Koomen, and Guido van Rossum. I don't think we need to introduce Guido!

Of all of the APIs that we expose in the App Engine back-end, we feel that the Database API is probably the most foreign for the majority of developers. Many are used to the relational model for datastores, and our datastore is different. Kevin talks about these differences, and the ramifications that come with a schema-less store. We then delve into the practicalities of having libraries such as SQL Alchemy support GQL which is a functional subset of SQL.

Guido discussed how the Python runtime is indeed the full language, but how some libraries are not there. He talks about the reasons behind the choices, which are mainly related to security. As time goes on more libraries that developers really need will make it into the system, often with equivalent implementations. Although a traditional file system doesn't make sense in the cloud, we could very well see a virtual file system implemented.

• What restrictions are there for serving your applications?
• What Web frameworks are available?
• Can you develop Web services as well as Web applications? How about gadget and widget?
• What kind of traffic can be expect with the free accounts?
• Can I run these applications on my domain, and integrate with Google Apps?

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You can download the episode directly, or subscribe to the show (click here for iTunes one-click subscribe).