Google released AppEngine which is basically an auto-scalable web host with a few limitations:
http://code.google.com/appengine/
Development is in Python.
It's free and very fast (you have to pay if go above the basic usage quotas but the quotas start out fairly decent). I think maybe this would be the ideal place to host server-based games (such as the Javascript/Ajax game Elvenfyre was working on recently). If i can adapt the Javascript TileEngine i already have to dynamically load maps as needed with Ajax (like the Map applications do) and put it on the AppEngine, we won't be too far away from a scalable game (technologically speaking) that can handle as many Ajax requests as needed.
I've been using it lately and i'm liking it.
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AppEngine (Read 16146 times)
January 02, 2009, 04:39:26 am 
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January 02, 2009, 11:03:21 am
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Shining Spammer 
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January 03, 2009, 06:27:12 pm
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Shining Sideburns
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January 03, 2009, 10:12:18 pm
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Re: AppEngine
Sounds good. What other kinds of things could it be used for?
Anything really. I'm using it to host a LaTeX plugin for Google Docs and i'm moving my personal site over there as well (there's a Django implementation for the AppEngine and that's what i'm using but it's in an early stage and it isn't perfect).
It's the same concept of a web host but with scalability in mind. For example the site's files, scripts and database can be distributed across Google's server infrastructure (some database tables may be in one server node and the others elsewhere). So as your site grows they can increase performance by mirroring or distributing the content in more places but you never really see this directly so you manage your apps as you would in a traditional host.
To make this possible they're providing a simple, non-relational database implementation, which in my experience is perfectly sufficient. They used some Django principles in the AppEngine, so for example you have full control over URLs (unlike PHP, it's easy to assign a script to handle all requests made to URLs under /mydir/ so you can have RESTfull URLs), they have a database Model implementation (almost identical to Django) which allows you to store data in the database as objects, without writing any SQL, for example:
Code:
aPerson = PersonModel()
aPerson.FirstName = 'John'
aPerson.LastName = 'Doe'
aPerson.put() //stores or updates object
Currently it only supports Python (easy language to learn) but i hear they're adding support for Java as well.
January 04, 2009, 10:39:56 am
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Shining Sideburns
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Re: AppEngine
Hmm, that's quite interesting. I've used a little Python and I keep hearing good things about Django, so I might give it a closer look. I'm a bit wary about tying myself to the Google platform, but I suppose it's not really any different from using a hosting company to store your stuff, just with lots of extra toys.
Looks like I've got something else to learn now.
Looks like I've got something else to learn now.