Joshua, have you considered memcache as a write-through cache? Memcache
should be strongly consistent with the caveat that when the data center
changes or any irregularity is detected, we flush it the cache.

--
Ikai Lan
Developer Programs Engineer, Google App Engine
plus.ikailan.com | twitter.com/ikai



On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 4:36 AM, Joshua Smith <[email protected]>wrote:

> In the dev appserver with --high_replication, if I do this:
>
> 1. Create a blank entity
> 2. Edit that entity
> 3. put that entity
> 4. Generate a list of entities
>
> That list, more often than not, shows me the blank entity.  The entity is
> in the index, but it does not reflect the put in step #3.  This is
> consistent with the "eventual consistency" model I've read about.
>
> If, in step 4, I generate a list of all entity KEYS, and then db.get()
> those entities, I never see the blank entity.  This is also consistent with
> the documentation.
>
> So, I believe that while my pattern requires an extra db roundtrip, it is
> much less like to show information that will lead to a support call.
>
> -Joshua
>
> On Sep 8, 2011, at 12:47 AM, Robert Kluin wrote:
>
> > This is done on the backend, if I remember correctly.  It doesn't gain
> > you anything.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 19:28, Joshua Smith <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >> Continuing the dialog with myself :)
> >>
> >> I've added this method to one of my classes that extends db.Model() and
> it is working well with the dev appserver in --high_replication mode:
> >>
> >>  @classmethod
> >>  def gql_with_get(cls, query_string, *args, **kwds):
> >>   return db.get(db.GqlQuery('SELECT __key__ FROM %s %s' % (cls.kind(),
> query_string), *args, **kwds))
> >>
> >> You use it just like gql().fetch().  For example:
> >>
> >>   boards = BoardModel.gql_with_get("WHERE towns = :1 ORDER BY name",
> tid)
> >>
> >> It doesn't fix the index (things might be out of order, for instance),
> but otherwise, it cures the problem of seeing stale data in HR.
> >>
> >> On Sep 7, 2011, at 12:22 PM, Joshua Smith wrote:
> >>
> >>> Another thought: The reason I was doing only one meeting per request
> was because of the old 30 second limit on crons.  But cron handlers can be
> 10 minutes now, which is plenty of time to schedule all the meetings.
>  Therefore, I suppose I could do this, right?
> >>>
> >>>   now = datetime.datetime.now()
> >>>   for schedule in db.get(db.gql("SELECT __key__ FROM ScheduleModel
> WHERE next != :1 AND next < :2", None, now)):
> >>>     if schedule.next and schedule.next < now:
> >>>       schedule.cronAuto()
> >>>
> >>> Is wrapping a GET around a KEYS-ONLY query guaranteed to get me the
> real-deal results (except, of course, for the fact that the index might be
> out-of-date, so I might miss recent changes to who is in/out of the query
> parameters)?  Is this an efficient way to express this, or should I be doing
> a fetch() on the gql first?
> >>>
> >>> It seems like it's possible to use a technique like this to get a
> more-consistent result in cases where that's desirable.  It at least would
> get you a consistent data for a subset of things matching your query.  In
> principle, you could even re-sort the results if there is an ORDER clause.
>  Seems like this would be something useful in the db API...
> >>>
> >>> -Joshua
> >>>
> >>> On Sep 7, 2011, at 11:18 AM, Joshua Smith wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm trying to port my existing M/S app to HR because I have a gun to
> my head with "Threaded Python Only for HR Apps" written on the bullets.
> >>>>
> >>>> My system will schedule meetings automatically.  Scheduling a meeting
> can take some time, because a bunch of records are created, and a bunch of
> emails need to go out.  So the code to schedule one looked like this:
> >>>>
> >>>> class MeetingAutoHandler(webapp.RequestHandler):
> >>>> def get(self):
> >>>>  schedule = ScheduleModel.gql("WHERE next != :1 AND next < :2", None,
> datetime.datetime.now()).get()
> >>>>  if schedule:
> >>>>    schedule.cronAuto()
> >>>>    taskqueue.add(url='/admin/meetingAuto', method='GET', countdown=1)
> >>>>
> >>>> The query looks for a schedule object that needs a meeting to to be
> scheduled now.  There might be a few of these when the cron runs.  So it
> does the hard work for one of them (in cronAuto()), and schedules another
> call to itself to get the next one using the task queue.
> >>>>
> >>>> This isn't going to work in HR because that query is going to keep
> finding the same meeting.  I could trivially tweak this by setting the
> countdown=60, but I've yet to hear any of our google overlords commit to a
> maximum value of when "eventually" happens in "eventually consistent".  I
> presume there might be cases, like during data center transitions, when
> "eventually" could be a very long time indeed.  It is essentially unbounded.
>  Right?
> >>>>
> >>>> But I like the pattern I'm using here, and I'm trying to change as
> little code as possible, so I want to put together a HR-resilient version.
>  Here's what I came up with:
> >>>>
> >>>> class MeetingAutoHandler(webapp.RequestHandler):
> >>>> def get(self):
> >>>>  now = datetime.datetime.now()
> >>>>  for s in db.gql("SELECT __key__ FROM ScheduleModel WHERE next != :1
> AND next < :2", None, now):
> >>>>    schedule = db.get(s)
> >>>>    if schedule.next and schedule.next < now:
> >>>>      schedule.cronAuto()
> >>>>      taskqueue.add(url='/admin/meetingAuto', method='GET',
> countdown=5)
> >>>>      return
> >>>>
> >>>> So I'm doing a keys-only query and then doing a get() on the key.
>  (I've never done a keys-only GQL query before, but I think I got it right.
>  Note to google: There should be an option to Model.gql() to do keys-only
> queries!)
> >>>>
> >>>> The way I understand HR, that get is going to get the real Model,
> which might not meet the criteria in the gql, because the index might be out
> of date.  Right?
> >>>>
> >>>> So I check that the model meets the criteria that I just specified.
>  (Note to google: It'd be cool if there was a way to test an object against
> a query, so I don't have to write the same code twice!)
> >>>>
> >>>> Finally, I pushed the next task out a bit, to make it less likely that
> I'll have to look at the same objects over and over.
> >>>>
> >>>> So what do you think?  Any suggestions?  (I have a couple things that
> work this way, so I want to choose a good design pattern to apply to each of
> them.)
> >>>>
> >>>> The complexity would be lessened if I could to this:
> >>>>
> >>>> class MeetingAutoHandler(webapp.RequestHandler):
> >>>> def get(self):
> >>>>  q = ScheduleModel.gql_keys_only("WHERE next != :1 AND next < :2",
> None,  datetime.datetime.now())
> >>>>  for s in  q:
> >>>>    schedule = db.get(s)
> >>>>    if q.matches(schedule):
> >>>>      schedule.cronAuto()
> >>>>      taskqueue.add(url='/admin/meetingAuto', method='GET',
> countdown=5)
> >>>>      return
> >>>>
> >>>> This would require two changes: the db.Model would need to support
> gql_keys_only (that's probably trivial); GqlQuery would need a matches()
> method (that's probably not trivial).
> >>>>
> >>>> It's still a few more lines, but the complexity is about the same as
> the old one.
> >>>>
> >>>> Worth the trouble of a couple feature request issues?
> >>>>
> >>>> -Joshua
> >>>>
> >>>> --
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