trying to understand some concepts

[red_z]

Hello,

I was hoping to get a few questions answered to help me better understand development on the Google App Engine platform (and webapp dev in general).

1. Do I have to declare all of my data tables/classes in the main script?  Also, I'm a little confused because the data is stored in the datastore, but it's a class.  If someone could explain how that works that'd be great.
2. How does my webapp data persist when I upload new versions?  Does GAE know not to create new tables whenever I upload a new version of the main script?
3. How do I have a piece of code running continuously or on a schedule?  and where would it go in terms of in the script?
4. How do I call other scripts, for when I want a link to go to a new page?

Sorry to clog the group with my noob questions but I figured I would understand better if I could get an actual answer instead of tutorials upon tutorials that don't quite answer my questions.

[Tim Hoffman]

Classes aren't stored in the datastore, properties/attributes of an instance of a class are stored in the datastore.
Hi

On Friday, August 19, 2011 2:29:13 PM UTC+8, red_z wrote:

Hello,

I was hoping to get a few questions answered to help me better understand development on the Google App Engine platform (and webapp dev in general).

I would start out be reading the overviews in the docs (for java or python), they tell you a lot (though assume you have some basic knowledge)
 

1. Do I have to declare all of my data tables/classes in the main script?  Also, I'm a little confused because the data is stored in the datastore, but it's a class.  If someone could explain how that works that'd be great.

there are no tables (if you read the getting started it will explain this).  You need to have imported modules (python) with the classes before you can retrieve an entity otherise the underlying datastore api doesn't no how to reconstitute the entity.

 

2. How does my webapp data persist when I upload new versions?  Does GAE know not to create new tables whenever I upload a new version of the main script?

 

Versions of code have generally nothing to do with what data is persisted unless you have to update data with the new version of the code.
Read the docs do the tutorials you will gain a greater understanding.
 

3. How do I have a piece of code running continuously or on a schedule?  and where would it go in terms of in the script?

cron, tasks, or backends - see services in the docs

4. How do I call other scripts, for when I want a link to go to a new page?

Now we are getting to really basic web 101 questions.  I think you really should do some more reading.
 

Sorry to clog the group with my noob questions but I figured I would understand better if I could get an actual answer instead of tutorials upon tutorials that don't quite answer my questions.

Your questions suggest that your also new to python or java (which ever you are choosing) as well as web oriented developement and appengine.
I would startout by getting a good handle of the fundamentals of basic web apps on your language of choice, by doing the basic tutorials
then move up to the datastore.

Rgds

Tim