"Hello World"
Greetings developers and welcome to my first post on this platform! My name is Wesley Chun, and I'm a software engineer based in Silicon Valley. The primary goal for this blog is to show developers how to code Google. By that I mean integrating (code, your apps) with Google technologies via its numerous APIs, dev tools and platforms. Specifically, I'll focus on Google Cloud ("GCP") and Google Workspace ("GWS")... the reason being that I spent over a dozen years working on these product teams.
Other topics I'll cover from time-to-time include using other Google APIs or developer tools/platforms, non-Google APIs / devtools / platforms, and general development with #Python and perhaps #Node.js. If you've learned Python in the past decade, you may be familiar with my Core Python (and other Python) books. Since I'll be working on the next edition of the original Core Python book ("Volume 1: Language Fundamentals"), expect me to write about that experience and its content as well.
While Python is my primary development language, I'm actively learning Node.js... who wants to be a 1-trick pony?!? :-) I'll share my experience with Python as well as coming up-to-speed with Node.js. Each post imparts one specific skill, best practice, or highlights a useful API or platform feature.
Posts will feature relevant code snippets and any complete samples in an offlinked Github repo — I'm open PRs for improvement and best practices — and if relevant, important code changes will be rolled back into posts. As mentioned earlier, most code samples will be in Python, but I'll add any equivalent Node.js samples if/when I have them, such as this example from a blog post demonstrating how to use the GCP Translation API:
Content preview
What kind of content with Google developer tools should you be expecting? Developer-friendly intros, intermediate features, etc. Here are some topics I've slated to include:
- How to get started using Google APIs
- Use of Google API client libraries
- Different credentials types for Google APIs
- Introducing GWS APIs (Drive, Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc.)
- Basic operations when using GCP APIs
- API usage for other Google products (Firebase, Google Maps, YouTube, etc.)
- Using APIs from multiple Google product families (GCP+GWS, GCP+Firebase, GWS+Maps, etc.)
I also lean towards content that isn't well covered by the official docs for GWS or GCP. Additional (non-Google) blog content may include:
- Python language features, interesting 3rd-party packages/modules, etc.
- Learning Node.js, interesting
npmpackages/modules, etc. - Topics in or about Core Python books
- Use of non-Google APIs (Twitter, Slack, etc.)
- Random tech stuff (dev tools, automation, ChatGPT, testing, etc.)
What's Next?
The first series I'm working on is intended to help developers get started using Google APIs, especially GWS APIs like Drive & Sheets, primarily because their use is "free," up to certain limits. No credit card is required like most GCP APIs. These posts focus on required boilerplate code as well as accomplishing common tasks, like downloading Google Docs as PDF files, uploading CSV files to Google Sheets, etc. I'll try to deliver a post every couple of weeks, so stay tuned!
NEXT POST: Part 1 on working with GWS APIs
WESLEY CHUN, MSCS, is a Google Developer Expert (GDE) in Google Cloud (GCP) & Google Workspace (GWS), author of Prentice Hall's bestselling "Core Python" series, co-author of "Python Web Development with Django", and has written for Linux Journal & CNET. He runs CyberWeb specializing in GCP & GWS APIs and serverless platforms, Python & App Engine migrations, and Python training & engineering. Wesley was one of the original Yahoo!Mail engineers and spent 13+ years on various Google product teams, speaking on behalf of their APIs, producing sample apps, codelabs, and videos for serverless migration and GWS developers. He holds degrees in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Music from the University of California, is a Fellow of the Python Software Foundation, and loves to travel to meet developers worldwide at conferences, user group events, and universities. Follow he/him @wescpy & his technical blog. Find this content useful? Contact CyberWeb if you may need help or buy him a coffee (or tea)!
Top comments (3)
Looking forward to the next blog post in this series!
Wes, I joined Dev just to try to reach you. You seem like the PERFECT person to address this basic Python 3 App Engine question: installing the App Engine SDK and pip installing something like google-cloud-ndb ends up with 2 different 'google' module locations on the developer's local system... which IDEs don't like. How to resolve? Can you take a look at stackoverflow.com/questions/768564...
Hi, found your msg here. Apologies for the tardy response. I added an answer for you at SO along with how I got them in the same place & working on a Mac. I'll also check my Debian machine to see if it's an issue and will update my SO answer if nec. ps. It's easier to reach me on SO or Twitter vs this blog platform.