I am investigating into if I can use a library like GHMM with my python web service in which runs on AppEngine.
Short answer: no
https://developers.google.com/appengine/kb/commontasks
What third party libraries can I use in my application?
You can use any pure Python third party libraries in your Google App Engine application. In order to use a third party library, simply include the files in your application's directory, and they will be uploaded with your application when you deploy it to our system. You can import the files as you would any other Python files with your application.
As #gahooa has said, the generic answer is no.
For more popular libraries that have C dependencies your best option right now is to file a ticket[1], get other to upvote (star) your ticket and have the App Engine add it as a supported library.
[1] http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/entry?template=Feature%20request
In 2021 yes you can.
The flexible version of AppEngine allows you to do this, standard does not.
If, like me, you cannot justify the full time running costs of flexible, an alternative is to host the C library on Cloud Run and make API calls to it. Then you have costs of AppEngine standard and Cloud Run, but both are on-demand only.
I have a some old Fortran77 codes, which does some calculations. Now I build a website hosted by Google App Engine, and need to call those models' calculation results. Since I am new to both GAE and PiCloud, my basic questions are:
Should I first compile those Fortran77 code using a windows compiler?
Then, publish those models to PiCloud
Call from GAE?
Does my approach make sense? or Does PiCloud has Fortran77 environment, which can directly do the calculation without compiling first? If so, is there any example about this topic?
Thanks!
Picloud claim "install any library or binary written in any language", so it's safe to say you can run fortran programs on it. In fact, their homepage even says:
You can deploy any software written in any programming language
including C, C++, Java, R, Fortran, Ruby, etc.
You shouldn't compile it with a windows compiler, because picloud runs linux - compile it using a linux compiler, such as GCC.
Regarding using it from App Engine, see this page, where it says:
[...] use PiCloud from Google AppEngine, since our cloud client library is not supported on GAE.
I am starting on developing a django application on a shared webhosting server(alwaysdata.com).
I would like to understand what are the packaing options available to package a django application (preferably in compiled form)
I would like to setup the source code repository on my system and build using the python packaging and deploy the package on alwaysdata.com.
I would like the option of not having to share the source code on alwaysdata.com.
Looking at pip , I am not able to find this option.
EDIT
A few more clarification: I would need the ability to not share the sourcecode since it contains the "API secret key" which I would not want to compromise. The more I look into it , the more i believe that there is no way for me to distribute binary only distribution.
I've found fabric to be a pretty nice tool for deploying Django projects. To compile your python code you can use compileall:
python -m compileall <dir>
How is this API key used? Is it a google maps api? Is it provided in scripts that go to the browser? If so, it's already out in the open, anyone using your site will see it, so you're trying to provide a $100 lock for a $0.01 piece of information. If it's a google maps api, it's not secured by keeping it hidden, but rather it's tied to a domain/directory (IIRC).
Can you share a little more what the API key is and is for, then maybe we can help you find a better solution to keep it secure.
Do you think you have to share your source code if you host your application on a 'shared hosting' provider? That's not the case. Your source code should still be private to you but the administrators of your hosting provider can get it too. Other normal Joe Users of the service shouldn't have access to your source code, or your database too. If they do, then get another shared hosting provider!
I currently work with .NET exclusively and would like to have a go at python. To this end I need to set up a python development environment. I guide to this would be handy. I guess I would be doing web development so will need a web server and probably a database. I also need pointers to popular ORM's, an MVC framework, and a testing library.
One of my main criteria with all this is that I want to understand how it works, and I want it to be as isolated as possible. This is important as i am wary of polluting what is a working .NET environment with 3rd party web and database servers. I am perfectly happy using SQLite to start with if this is possible.
If I get on well with this I am also likely to want to set up automated build and ci server (On a virtual machine, probably ubuntu). Any suggestions for these would be useful.
My ultimate aim if i like python is to have similar sorts of tools that i have available with .NET and to really understand the build and deployment of it all. To start with I will settle for a simple development environment that is as isolated as possible and will be easy to remove if I don't like it. I don't want to use IronPython as I want the full experience of developing a python solution using the tools and frameworks that are generally used.
It's not that hard to set up a Python environment, and I've never had it muck up my .NET work. Basically, install Python --- I'd use 2.6 rather than 3.0, which is not yet broadly accepted --- and add it to your PATH, and you're ready to go with the language. I wouldn't recommend using a Ubuntu VM as your development environment; if you're working on Windows, you might as well develop on Windows, and I've had no significant problems doing so. I go back and forth from Windows to Linux with no trouble.
If you have an editor that you're comfortable with that has basic support for Python, I'd stick with it. If not, I've found Geany to be a nice, light, easy-to-use editor with good Python support, though I use Emacs myself because I know it; other people like SCITE, NotePad++, or any of a slew of others. I'd avoid fancy IDEs for Python, because they don't match the character of the language, and I wouldn't bother with IDLE (included with Python), because it's a royal pain to use.
Suggestions for libraries and frameworks:
Django is the standard web framework, but it's big and you have to work django's way; I prefer CherryPy, which is also actively supported, but is light, gives you great freedom, and contains a nice, solid webserver that can be replaced easily with httpd.
Django includes its own ORM, which is nice enough; there's a standalone one for Python, though, which is even nicer: SQL Alchemy
As far as a testing library goes, pyunit seems to me to be the obvious choice
Good luck, and welcome to a really fun language!
EDIT summary: I originally recommended Karrigell, but can't any more: since the 3.0 release, it's been continuously broken, and the community is not large enough to solve the problems. CherryPy is a good substitute if you like a light, simple framework that doesn't get in your way, so I've changed the above to suggest it instead.
Well, if you're thinking of setting up an Ubuntu VM anyway, you might as well make that your development environment. Then you can install Apache and MySQL or Postgres on that VM just via the standard packaging tools (apt-get install), and there's no danger of polluting your Windows environment.
You can either do the actual development on your Windows machine via your favourite IDE, using the VM as a networked drive and saving the code there, or you can just use the VM as a full desktop environment and do everything there, which is what I would recommend.
Install the pre-configured ActivePython release from activestate.
Among other features, it includes the PythonWin IDE (Windows only) which makes it easy to explore Python interactively.
The recommended reference is Dive Into Python, mentioned many times on similar SO discussions.
You should install python 2.4, python 2.5, python 2.6 and python 3.0, and add to your path the one you use more often (Add c:\Pythonxx\ and c:\Pythonxx\Scripts).
For every python 2.x, install easy_install; Download ez_setup.py and then from the cmd:
c:\Python2x\python.exe x:\path\to\ez_setup.py
c:\Python2x\Scripts\easy_install virtualenv
Then each time you start a new project create a new virtual environment to isolate the specific package you needs for your project:
mkdir <project name>
cd <project name>
c:\Python2x\Scripts\virtualenv --no-site-packages .\v
It creates a copy of python and its libraries in .v\Scripts and .\v\Lib. Every third party packages you install in that environment will be put into .\v\Lib\site-packages. The -no-site-packages don't give access to the global site package, so you can be sure all your dependencies are in .\v\Lib\site-packages.
To activate the virtual environment:
.\v\Scripts\activate
For the frameworks, there are many. Django is great and very well documented but you should probably look at Pylons first for its documentions on unicode, packaging, deployment and testing, and for its better WSGI support.
For the IDE, Python comes with IDLE which is enough for learning, however you might want to look at Eclipse+PyDev, Komodo or Wingware Python IDE. Netbean 6.5 has beta support for python that looks promising (See top 5 python IDE).
For the webserver, you don't need any; Python has its own and all web framework come with their own. You might want to install MySql or ProgreSql; it's often better to develop on the same DB you will use for production.
Also, when you have learnt Python, look at Foundations of Agile Python Development or Expert Python Programming.
Using Python on Windows
SO: Python tutorial for total beginners?
Take a look at Pylons, read about WSGI and Paste.
There's nice introductory Google tech talk about them: ReUsable Web Components with Python and Future Python Web Development.
Here's my answer to similar question:
Django vs other Python web frameworks?
NOTE: I included a lot of links to frameworks, projects and what-not, but as a new user I was limited to 1 link per answer. If someone else with enough reputation to edit wants/can edit them into this answer instead of the footnotes, I'd be grateful.
There are some Python IDE's such as Wing IDE[1], I believe some people use Eclipse[2] with a python plugin[3] as well. A lot of people in the #python channel of FreeNode seem to prefer vim, emacs, nano and similar text editors in favor of IDE's. My personal preffered editor is Vim, but if you've mostly done .NET development on windows, presumably with the usual Visual X IDE's, vim and emacs will probably cause you culture shock and you'd be better of using an IDE.
Nearly all python web frameworks* support the WSGI standard[4], most of the large web servers have some sort of plugin to support WSGI, the others support WSGI via fast cgi or plain cgi.
The Zope[5] and Django[6] frameworks have their own ORM's, of other ORM's the two most well known appear to be SQL Alchemy[7] and SQL Object[8]. I only have experience with the former, but both support all possible sane database choices, including SQLite which is installed together with Python and hence perfectly suited to testing and experimenting without polluting your .NET environment with 3rd part web servers and database servers.
The builtin unittest[9] and pyunit[10] frameworks seem to be the preffered solutions for unit testing, but I don't have much experience with these.
bpython[11] and ipython[12] offer enhanced interactive python shells which can greatly help speed up and testing small bits of code and hence worth looking in to.
As for a list of well known and often used web frameworks, look into the following frameworks**:
Twisted[13] is a generic networking framework, which supports almost every single protocol under the sun.
Pylons[14] is light-weight framework aimed at being as flexible as possible and leaving all the choices about what ORM, templating language and what-not to you.
CherryPy[15] tries to provide an interface to expose Python objects to the web.
Django[6] attempts to be an all-in-one solution, builtin template system, ORM, admin pages and internationalization. While the previous frameworks have more DIY wiring together various frameworks work involved with them.
Zope[5] is aimed to be suitable for large enterprise applications, I've heard nothing but good things about it, but consensus seems to be that for smaller you're probably better off with one of the simpler and smaller frameworks.
TurboGears[16] is the framework I know the least about, but it seems to be mostly competition for Django.
This is everything I can think of right now, I'll edit and add stuff if I can think of it. I hope this helps you some in the wonderful world of python.
* - The main exception would be Apache's mod_python, which you should avoid for exactly that reason, use mod_wsgi instead.
** - Word of warning, I have not personally used these frameworks this is just a very short impression I have gotten from talking to other people about each framework, it may be wildly inaccurate. (If anyone has any corrections, do comment and I'll try to edit and fix this answer).
(The http:// is missing since they're recognized as links otherwise)
[1] www.wingware.com/
[2] www.eclipse.org/
[3] pydev.sourceforge.net/
[4] wsgi.org/wsgi/
[5] www.zope.org/
[6] www.djangoproject.com/
[7] www.sqlalchemy.org/
[8] www.sqlobject.org/
[9] docs.python.org/library/unittest.html
[10] pyunit.sourceforge.net/pyunit.html
[11] www.bpython-interpreter.org/
[12] ipython.scipy.org/
[13] twistedmatrix.com/trac/
[14] pylonshq.com/
[15] www.cherrypy.org/
[16] turbogears.org/
Environment?
Here is the simplest solution:
Install Active Python 2.6. Its the Python itself, but comes with some extra handy useful stuff, like DiveintoPython chm.
Use Komodo Edit 5. It is among the good free editor you can use for Python.
Use IDLE. Its the best simplest short snippet editor, with syntax highlighting and auto complete unmatched by most other IDEs. It comes bundled with python.
Use Ipython. Its a shell that does syntax highlighting and auto complete, bash functions, pretty print, logging, history and many such things.
Install easy_install and/or pip for installing various 3rd party apps easily.
Coming from Visual Studio and .Net it will sound a lot different, but its an entirely different world.
For the framework, django works the best. Walk thro the tutorial and you will be impressed enough. The documentation rocks. The community, you have to see for yourself, to know how wonderful it is!!
Python has build in SQL like database and web server, so you wouldn't need to install any third party apps. Remember Python comes with batteries included.
If you've worked with Eclipse before you could give Pydev a try
What is required to make the transition to Python 3.x for Google App Engine?
I know Google App Engine requires the use of at least Python 2.5.
Is it possible to use Python 3.0 already on Google App Engine?
It is impossible to currently use Python 3.x applications on Google App Engine. It's simply not supported, and I'd expect to see support for Java (or Perl, or PHP) before Python 3.x.
That said, the upgrade path is likely to be very simple from Python 2.5 to Python 3.x on App Engine. If/when the capability is added, as long as you've coded your application anticipating the changes in Python itself, it should be very straightforward. The heavy lifting has to be done by the Google Engineers. And you'll no doubt be able to keep your application at Python 2.5 for a long while after Python 3.0 is available.
At least at the being, Guido was working closely with the team at Google who is building AppEngine. When this option does become available, you will have to edit your main XAML file.
I agree with Chris B. that Python 3.0 support may not be forthcoming too soon, but I'm not sure I agree that it will come sooner than Perl or PHP. At the Google I/O conference last year, they were very mum on what future languages they would support on AppEngine but they were pretty clear on the fact that they're actively exploring how to safely allow other code to run. One of the main reason they chose to support Python is that they due to it's dynamically compiled nature, they could support 3rd party library extensions with the minimal restriction that all add-ons must be in pure Python.
I wouldn't be surprised if Python 3.0 support was introduced sooner than new languages.
The app.yaml syntax already supports multiple languages and multiple API versions, though only one of each (Python, API version 1) is currently supported. Presumably, one of those extension mechanisms will be used to specify that you want Python 3, and it'll be up to you to port your app over to work in Python 3, then change that setting.
As it does not look like that google updates app engine to python 3 soon it might be worth to keep an eye on Jython. As of now they still work on 2.6, but that would already be better than 2.5.