Is Google App Engine Launcher being deprecated? Why??

[Hannes Rydén]

I've been developing sites for App Engine Python for years and have always loved the Google App Engine Launcher client for Windows. It makes developing and publishing websites a breeze, compared to most other web server software.

Now I wanted to install the latest version, clicked the download button as usual but were then lead to install the Cloud SDK client instead. So I did. But gone was the simple graphical interface, and I was met with a confusing terminal interface instead, which seemed much more limited in functionality (can I even have multiple sites running at the same time on different ports?). I can't even find how to start the program again after I shut it down.

I finally found the old client download, which was hard to find without reading forums. Why would you recommend users to use a clearly inferior product in terms of usability? I think that will deter many new users from developing on App Engine.

I think it would be much better if you make the old Launcher the recommended tool for App Engine instead, and provide the Cloud SDK an alternative. I really love App Engine, so that's why I'm sad to see when some new changes seem to make it worse (which is usually not the case, as you've been making some great changes over the years).

[Nicholas (Google Cloud Support)]

Thank you for voicing your concerns.

I can confirm that we are strongly moving towards having App Engine a component of the Cloud SDK but there are no public plans to deprecate the App Engine SDKs.

If you wish to have multiple services running using dev_appserver.py, you can do so by by running multiple instances of them.  As stated in the Local Development Server Options under the --port option:

If multiple servers are launched, they will be assigned subsequent ports (e.g. 8081, 8082, etc)

We are aware of user base that prefers the App Engine Launcher.  Apart from that, should there be other features that you would like to see implemented in the Cloud SDK, please feel free to file a feature request on the Cloud Platform public issue tracker.  We welcome the feedback.

[George Bittmann]

The App Engine Launcher was largely how I was able to sell my team on using App Engine.

Nicholas do you know if there are plans to create a GUI product for App Engine using the new Cloud SDK?

Knowing one way or the other will be helpful.

[Nicholas (Google Cloud Support)]

I am not aware of any plans to create a GUI for the Cloud SDK.

• Are there particular features of the launcher that are unavailable or difficult to use with gcloud command line tool?
  
• Are there any particular pain points to the gcloud command line tool?
  

[Joshua Smith]

Having used both, the GUI is much better in two cases:

1. When you have a lot of projects, it’s nice to have the GUI to just click and update, vs having to root around finding the right script to run.

2. I could train a non-programmer to push an update to a web app using the GUI. Not so using the command line.

Also, the whole setup for the command line is really focused on the idea that you’ll have only one project, which is pretty silly. So you end up having to write simple scripts as wrappers around the command line stuff, just to pass project names.

And one other issue with the command line that was really just a violation of the principle of least surprise: deploying should NOT route all traffic to the version you just pushed. That’s insane. Whoever thought that was a good default clearly has no experience developing real applications. Not a big deal to work around because I have to write the aforementioned wrapper scripts anyway, but… seriously?

-Joshua

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[Nicholas (Google Cloud Support)]

Thanks for the feedback.

Regarding the switch to different projects, one can use the global flag --project=my_project_id for a given command to be performed with a specific context.  Alternatively, one could use gcloud config set project my_project_id to achieve a longer term effect.  This will remain in effect until changed.

The default behavior to promote a new deployment can be changed per deployment using the --no-promote flag.  If you wish deployments not to be promoted by default, you can use gcloud config set app/promote_by_default false.  This will remain the new default behavior unless changed or using the --promote flag when deploying.

Depending on the needs of your company, you may want to consider the App Engine Admin API.  These APIs allow you to create applications, create/list/delete service versions, etc. programmatically.  With these operations, you could make your own custom user interface for managing your projects, applications and services.

On Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 3:36:57 PM UTC-5, Joshua Smith wrote:

Having used both, the GUI is much better in two cases:

1. When you have a lot of projects, it’s nice to have the GUI to just click and update, vs having to root around finding the right script to run.

2. I could train a non-programmer to push an update to a web app using the GUI. Not so using the command line.

Also, the whole setup for the command line is really focused on the idea that you’ll have only one project, which is pretty silly. So you end up having to write simple scripts as wrappers around the command line stuff, just to pass project names.

And one other issue with the command line that was really just a violation of the principle of least surprise: deploying should NOT route all traffic to the version you just pushed. That’s insane. Whoever thought that was a good default clearly has no experience developing real applications. Not a big deal to work around because I have to write the aforementioned wrapper scripts anyway, but… seriously?

-Joshua

On Dec 21, 2016, at 2:39 PM, 'Nicholas (Google Cloud Support)' via Google App Engine <google-appengine@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I am not aware of any plans to create a GUI for the Cloud SDK.

• Are there particular features of the launcher that are unavailable or difficult to use with gcloud command line tool?
  
• Are there any particular pain points to the gcloud command line tool?
  

On Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 1:31:10 PM UTC-5, George Bittmann wrote:

The App Engine Launcher was largely how I was able to sell my team on using App Engine.

Nicholas do you know if there are plans to create a GUI product for App Engine using the new Cloud SDK?

Knowing one way or the other will be helpful.

On Monday, December 19, 2016 at 4:54:41 PM UTC-5, Nicholas (Google Cloud Support) wrote:

Thank you for voicing your concerns.

I can confirm that we are strongly moving towards having App Engine a component of the Cloud SDK but there are no public plans to deprecate the App Engine SDKs.

If you wish to have multiple services running using dev_appserver.py, you can do so by by running multiple instances of them.  As stated in the Local Development Server Options under the --port option:

If multiple servers are launched, they will be assigned subsequent ports (e.g. 8081, 8082, etc)

We are aware of user base that prefers the App Engine Launcher.  Apart from that, should there be other features that you would like to see implemented in the Cloud SDK, please feel free to file a feature request on the Cloud Platform public issue tracker.  We welcome the feedback.

On Thursday, December 8, 2016 at 2:48:35 PM UTC-5, Hannes Rydén wrote:

I've been developing sites for App Engine Python for years and have always loved the Google App Engine Launcher client for Windows. It makes developing and publishing websites a breeze, compared to most other web server software.

Now I wanted to install the latest version, clicked the download button as usual but were then lead to install the Cloud SDK client instead. So I did. But gone was the simple graphical interface, and I was met with a confusing terminal interface instead, which seemed much more limited in functionality (can I even have multiple sites running at the same time on different ports?). I can't even find how to start the program again after I shut it down.

I finally found the old client download, which was hard to find without reading forums. Why would you recommend users to use a clearly inferior product in terms of usability? I think that will deter many new users from developing on App Engine.

I think it would be much better if you make the old Launcher the recommended tool for App Engine instead, and provide the Cloud SDK an alternative. I really love App Engine, so that's why I'm sad to see when some new changes seem to make it worse (which is usually not the case, as you've been making some great changes over the years).

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[George Bittmann]

To answer the first question, everything is easier when a GUI is available. 

Viewing a list of the local projects, starting the development environment, deploying to the live environment. These actions are all done by non-programmers quite often with the GUI, without the need of a developer's intervention, because it's incredibly simple with the GUI.

[Joshua Smith]

Yes, obviously I know all that, because I said I’m writing scripts for every project. So instead of having a nice GUI that does it all for me, I have to create and maintain a dozen scripts. This is progress?

With these operations, you could make your own custom user interface for managing your projects, applications and services.

Wait. What?

Does google actually believe that instead of providing an easy-to-use interface for setting up and managing applications and services, enterprises want to build their OWN GUIs to do this?

Do you guys ever actually talk to your customers?

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[Justin Beckwith]

Greetings folks,

And thanks for all of the feedback. We apologize for any confusion we may have caused after switching the links on the App Engine SDK downloads page.  Our long term goal is to have all of the App Engine tooling available from the Cloud SDK.  As we transition over, there are a few tools that didn't make the initial trip - the App Engine Launcher is one of them.  We want to minimize pain for people while switching over, so we're definitely going to take a second look at including this (or a similar tool) in the box.  I'll take this back to the team, and we'll figure out how to move this forward.

In the meantime, please do let us know if you have any other concerns.  

Thanks!

On Wednesday, December 28, 2016 at 7:43:23 AM UTC-8, Joshua Smith wrote:

Yes, obviously I know all that, because I said I’m writing scripts for every project. So instead of having a nice GUI that does it all for me, I have to create and maintain a dozen scripts. This is progress?

With these operations, you could make your own custom user interface for managing your projects, applications and services.

Wait. What?

Does google actually believe that instead of providing an easy-to-use interface for setting up and managing applications and services, enterprises want to build their OWN GUIs to do this?

Do you guys ever actually talk to your customers?

On Dec 26, 2016, at 5:06 PM, 'Nicholas (Google Cloud Support)' via Google App Engine <google-a...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Thanks for the feedback.

Regarding the switch to different projects, one can use the global flag --project=my_project_id for a given command to be performed with a specific context.  Alternatively, one could use gcloud config set project my_project_id to achieve a longer term effect.  This will remain in effect until changed.

The default behavior to promote a new deployment can be changed per deployment using the --no-promote flag.  If you wish deployments not to be promoted by default, you can use gcloud config set app/promote_by_default false.  This will remain the new default behavior unless changed or using the --promote flag when deploying.

Depending on the needs of your company, you may want to consider the App Engine Admin API.  These APIs allow you to create applications, create/list/delete service versions, etc. programmatically.  With these operations, you could make your own custom user interface for managing your projects, applications and services.

On Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 3:36:57 PM UTC-5, Joshua Smith wrote:

Having used both, the GUI is much better in two cases:

1. When you have a lot of projects, it’s nice to have the GUI to just click and update, vs having to root around finding the right script to run.

2. I could train a non-programmer to push an update to a web app using the GUI. Not so using the command line.

Also, the whole setup for the command line is really focused on the idea that you’ll have only one project, which is pretty silly. So you end up having to write simple scripts as wrappers around the command line stuff, just to pass project names.

And one other issue with the command line that was really just a violation of the principle of least surprise: deploying should NOT route all traffic to the version you just pushed. That’s insane. Whoever thought that was a good default clearly has no experience developing real applications. Not a big deal to work around because I have to write the aforementioned wrapper scripts anyway, but… seriously?

-Joshua

On Dec 21, 2016, at 2:39 PM, 'Nicholas (Google Cloud Support)' via Google App Engine <google-a...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I am not aware of any plans to create a GUI for the Cloud SDK.

• Are there particular features of the launcher that are unavailable or difficult to use with gcloud command line tool?
  
• Are there any particular pain points to the gcloud command line tool?
  

On Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 1:31:10 PM UTC-5, George Bittmann wrote:

The App Engine Launcher was largely how I was able to sell my team on using App Engine.

Nicholas do you know if there are plans to create a GUI product for App Engine using the new Cloud SDK?

Knowing one way or the other will be helpful.

On Monday, December 19, 2016 at 4:54:41 PM UTC-5, Nicholas (Google Cloud Support) wrote:

Thank you for voicing your concerns.

I can confirm that we are strongly moving towards having App Engine a component of the Cloud SDK but there are no public plans to deprecate the App Engine SDKs.

If you wish to have multiple services running using dev_appserver.py, you can do so by by running multiple instances of them.  As stated in the Local Development Server Options under the --port option:

If multiple servers are launched, they will be assigned subsequent ports (e.g. 8081, 8082, etc)

We are aware of user base that prefers the App Engine Launcher.  Apart from that, should there be other features that you would like to see implemented in the Cloud SDK, please feel free to file a feature request on the Cloud Platform public issue tracker.  We welcome the feedback.

On Thursday, December 8, 2016 at 2:48:35 PM UTC-5, Hannes Rydén wrote:

I've been developing sites for App Engine Python for years and have always loved the Google App Engine Launcher client for Windows. It makes developing and publishing websites a breeze, compared to most other web server software.

Now I wanted to install the latest version, clicked the download button as usual but were then lead to install the Cloud SDK client instead. So I did. But gone was the simple graphical interface, and I was met with a confusing terminal interface instead, which seemed much more limited in functionality (can I even have multiple sites running at the same time on different ports?). I can't even find how to start the program again after I shut it down.

I finally found the old client download, which was hard to find without reading forums. Why would you recommend users to use a clearly inferior product in terms of usability? I think that will deter many new users from developing on App Engine.

I think it would be much better if you make the old Launcher the recommended tool for App Engine instead, and provide the Cloud SDK an alternative. I really love App Engine, so that's why I'm sad to see when some new changes seem to make it worse (which is usually not the case, as you've been making some great changes over the years).

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[Alex Kerr]

Thanks for the update. It's a real shame that the Launcher has been deprecated. This is one decision that needs to be reversed. I think unless Google has clear stats showing either a very small active userbase for Launcher and/or a clear and rapid downward trend of usage, then development should continue, even if it trails the main Cloud SDK somewhat.

I can't understand why Google would do something that makes using their cloud products significantly harder for current users, and creates a significantly steeper learning curve for new and prospective users of their Cloud Platform. How is this a good business decision!?

Given the Launcher is an existing product and codebase, I hope that continuing development (even if only occasional updates) will be reconsidered, pretty much immediately. If part of the reason for deprecation was a rather basic UI, then I can safely say that a more complex text based interface is a massive step backwards in that department. Surely it makes sense to have an attractive GUI for potential new users of AppEngine, which prides itself on being simple and easy to use?

I'm using Launcher on Windows 8 with the PHP SDK, by the way.

Any update on this issue would be appreciated, thank you.

Alex

[Nigel King]

3. In addition when one has a bug and the site does not deploy properly being without the intermediate stage makes debugging more difficult.

Nigel

[Justin Beckwith]

If anyone is interested, I have an open source / not-official / unsupported / use at your own risk  UI for App Engine over here :) 

https://github.com/JustinBeckwith/trebuchet

Thoughts appreciated!

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[Mike Elugelab]

I can't tell you how valuable the Launcher is.  I want to write code -- I don't want to get entwined in the tortured world of devops scripting.  Yes, understand Google wants us to use Cloud SDK, but the Launcher is such a great front door to get in.  If you didn't have Launcher I'd change to Heroku and never again think about App Engine again or tell my friends how good it is/was.

@Justin: please keep supporting (unofficially, of course) your GUI.  Maybe Google will make it official.

Meanwhile, a discussion on Stack Overflow pointed to this link where the original App Engine Launcher can still be downloaded:

https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/standard/python/download#appengine_sdk

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/38982261/has-the-google-app-engine-launcher-for-mac-osx-been-deprecated

[Alejandro Pivaral]

Yes, please! Google App Engine Launcher was great, specially for Windows users, I also want to focus in writing code not in command line stuff :(

[NP]

I had some issues with TLS and had to upgrade my SDK version which was when I realized it was no longer the default.

It is really sad that Google is de-prioritizing the launcher. The whole aim of App Engine was to get someone who is only fairly technical or knows how to program in high level languages without knowledge of Unix/command based issues, up and running. I was so confused and frustrated the first time I tried to use Compute Engine that I quickly went back to App Engine. I've also been able to sell a bunch of people on using Google Cloud by telling them they could easily try out their ideas via App Engine which is like 'plug and play'.

Overall, it seems to me that Google has been making decisions that only meets the needs of their 'more technical' user base while ignoring the less technical folks. I don't know if they have data to back up this belief that they have more users in the former group or that the latter group are insignificant. But it looks to me that I should start looking for other cloud platforms because it is becoming more difficult to rely on Google cloud (they've also had frequent changes in their API and products)

[PK K]

Every major IDE these days has integration with app engine and there are open source tools as well. As long as the GAE core team provides the APIs needed for third parties this sounds the right approach to me. Let the Google team devote its resources on the core issues that nobody else can solve/improve vs. trying the impossible task to provide the tools that will please only a few.

[Alan Foos]

Just being an old man and not that technically inclined, I much appreciate the GUI app launcher and concur with the majority here. KISS, Google (Keep It Simple Stupid), and stop delisting and otherwise walking all over little people simply because you don't like them to speak the truth. . 

[Hj L]

Just came back to App Engine to work on a new website/server. Now, I have to relearn things to get it work again. This is exactly the reason why I prefer GUI over command line tools. Whenever I have to relearn, GUI takes way shorter amount of time compare to command line instructions that are likely to get changed in the future. I am really dumbfounded for this approach by Google team especially after watching a youtube video that Google and other companies are investing millions of dollars for computer science education because of the industry's shortage of developers. With good GUI tools, it can cut some of those needs for developers. Going back to command lines likely waste intelligence resources on something completely unneeded in a development cycle. As of the time of writing, I couldn't find the App Engine Launcher on the download links so I just updated my old version to 1.9.62 for the time being. It's a bit stressing to see that I am being coerced to learn the command line instructions when I thought I could just begin to code to quickly get things over with old approach.

[Sachin P]

I Just saw the download link : https://storage.googleapis.com/appengine-sdks/featured/GoogleAppEngine-1.9.62.msi 

So, when using gcloud , is there documents that we can corelate with existing launcher 

What is the command for start

What is the command for add and application 

etcc... etc... 

[Christophe Meudec]

Well Android Studio 3.0 does not support GAE any longer. What's going on?

Will support come back in a later version or is it gone gone?

[NP]

Google has recently been sending out notifications about the deprecation of appcfg including the launcher. Apparently, they still didn't reverse their decision to sunset Launcher. This is such a bummer.

On Thursday, December 8, 2016 at 11:48:35 AM UTC-8, Hannes Rydén wrote:

[Harmit Rishi (Cloud Platform Support)]

I was able to find the official notice for the deprecation of appcfg. Looks like it is set to be deprecated on July 30, 2019 while the shutdown date is set for July 30,2020. You may find further details about this here. 

As for the launcher, we recommend moving to the Cloud SDK for future developments. You may install it here.

Hope this helps!

[Kaan Soral]

Right now appcfg isn't working for me, I was right in the middle of a multi-platform update, now my product (game) is defunctional for an unknown time

I had no idea appcfg was going to stop working, I'm shocked :(

[Kaan Soral]

Turns out it was #googledown - I managed to get a token after 15 minutes, but didn't work, all in all, resulted in a 45 minutes down time, my luck I guess, as it was a month-long update

[NoCommandLine]

I've also built a replacement/alternative for GAE Launcher - https://nocommandline.com. I used the old one till sometime last year when it 'effectively' became useless (Google stopped supporting deploying via appcfg.py which the launcher used).

If you're still missing GAE Launcher, consider giving the tool a trial and give us your feedback. More information about the tool can be found in this writeup - 

https://nocommandline.com/blog/nocommandline-a-replacement-for-the-deprecated-google-app-engine-launcher/