I’ve always been a desktop guy, preferring to use desktop applications over web ones wherever possible. And since I started programming, I only wrote desktop applications with Qt and KDE. Maybe it was the whole paradigm, or just a lucky choice of language and toolkit, but I liked it immediately and soon learned to feel at home with programming. I got used to C++, it’s strictness and plenty of compile-time error checking.
It was only recently that I decided to broaden my horizons. I got a smartphone, I’m using both a desktop computer and a laptop, so I’m starting to find it easier to store non-sensitive data in the cloud. I’ve had GMail for a long time, WordPress as well, and even used Facebook until I deleted my profile because it was a waste of time. This movement of course reflected on my programming as well. After writing Opeke and Knights (C++/KDE), contributing to Orange (Python/Qt), I have decided it’s time to learn something new again.
Platform Choices
The first problem I encountered was the choice of platform. On the desktop, everything is free (at least as in beer), no matter if you choose Windows, Qt, Gtk, or something else. You write a program, other people compile and run it. After you’ve written the code, that’s it. On the web, everything is different: you (as the author/developer) have to run the application on your own infrastructure, and more importantly you also have to cover the cost. Fortunately, there are a couple of options that do it easily and cheaply. There’s probably more, but these three are the most used ones:
Amazon Elastic Cloud
Image via CrunchBase
It lets you run any OS, but you have to manage the entire software stack yourself. This options grants you the most freedom, and it’s easy to migrate you application from here to a dedicated host and back. This is in my opinion the best option, if it weren’t for the price: the smallest package (micro instance) costs around 15$ a month, even if you don’t use it very much.
There is a free tier that lets you run the 15$ package for free, but it only lasts for a year. I’ve tried it with my http://noughmad.eu website, and it’s noticeable slow even with a small number of visitors (I had around 100 per day). I understand pricing gets better with volume, so as long as you’re prepared to use your own computer or another dedicated host while learning, writing and testing your app, it could be useful when your app is ready for the public. Yet again, because of it costliness, it’s not really appropriate for non-commercial fun projects.
Google AppEngine
Image via CrunchBase
Unlike the Amazon cloud, Google provides a complete managed software stack. This means less work and worries for you, but it comes at a heavy price: Only Java, Python and Go are supported. The runtime environment (especially the database) is designed with scalability in mind, rather than compatibility with existing systems, so porting an app to and from GAE is not trivial.
Still, it’s possible to develop apps that will be compatible with the App Engine and still work without it. For Python, this can be done with Django and django-appengine. For Java, you can use GWT for presentation and JDO for database objects, both of which can work on GAE and on your own server. However, you always have to keep in mind the restrictions Google’s datastore imposes on your data query to ensure scalability.
Windows Azure
It comes from Microsoft, so I’m not touching it. I don’t even know what it offers, but from what I could tell it’s not free, which means bad news for a hobby programmer.
My Choice
I chose to start with Google App Engine. The main reason was cost: It’s free for small apps permanently. Out of the three supported languages I only know Python, so I used that, combined with the power and comfort of Django. There is a large number of modules for it, including Dajax (asynchronous requests) and a REST framework (to easily create an API).
Appearance
Another important difference between desktop and web programming is application visual appearance. On the desktop, the toolkit will guarantee a consistent look and feel with other programs, so you don’t have to think about how your buttons look. You just create a button, and users will see it will all sorts of decorations and text effects, and it will be just like all the buttons in all other programs.
On the web, the default appearance with most browsers looks like horrible. You have to specify the style of every single element of the page, setting colors, borders and layout. The separation between content and appearance is nice, but it would be even nicer if I didn’t have to worry about the appearance at all.
My First Web Application
For the learning experience, I decided on a task management tool. You can find it at http://ntasks.appspot.com. It’s not much yet, and most certainly it doesn’t look like much, but I’m starting to like Django so maybe it’s going to progress faster in the future.
The Noughmad's Land 