Remember when Google App Engine was just for Pythonistas? Those
were some dark days. Google Inc. opened up its cloud-computing platform to
Java™ developers in April 2009. In this three-part article series, Java technology author and
trainer Rick Hightower gets you started with this reliable, robust, and fun platform
for Java-based development. In this article, you'll get an overview of why Google App
Engine for Java could
be the deployment platform for your next highly scalable killer app, then start using the Google Plugin for Eclipse to build two example apps: one based on Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and one based on the Java Servlet API. You'll learn for yourself what a difference Google App
Engine for Java makes, both in building out an application from scratch and in deploying it to the tune of up to five million views. (And that's just the free version.)