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 * Implements background tasks for * <a href="http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/java/overview.html">Google App * Engine for Java</a>, based on the * <a href="http://code.google.com/appengine/articles/deferred.html">Python 'deferred' * library</a>; simplifies use of the <a href="http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/java/taskqueue/overview.html"> * Task Queue Java API</a> by automatically handling the serialization and * deserializtion of complex task arguments.

This article studies the proxy technique first and then turns to the Google AJAX Feed API method, giving you a chance to intermix Java™and JavaScript coding.

You need a service that, when given a feed URL, connects to that site, downloads its contents, and sends them back to the caller. (For a shell-line parallel, consider the wget or curl command.) You can do this many ways, and Listing 2 shows a simple way to accomplish the task. Because I decided to call my remote proxy RemoteProxy, the server-side class had to be called RemoteProxyImpl; Impl stands for "Implementation."

The SOP won't let your code get data from another site, but there's an exception: You can download and execute JavaScript code using the <script ... /> tag. If the code you download happens to include data and calls a function of yours that puts the data to good use, then you have managed to bypass the SOP. Here's the idea behind the Google AJAX Feed API: It uses the <script ... /> tag to call a Google site that works as a proxy. The remote site gets the feed data and returns it in the form of JavaScript code. The downloaded JavaScript code calls your function so you can process the incoming XML