adding JSON support

Earlier this morning I started adding JSON support to myitunespurchases. This should prove to be straightforward since the core processing of the iTunes feed is a simple block of code right now. Once I have JSON support setup then it will be a simple matter of adding an XML gadget file for OpenSocial support.

Google App Engine and Python

I'm setting out to learn Python and Django in order to make some use of Google App Engine. I spent an hour yesterday working through the helloworld sample that results in a reasonable guest book application. I don't want to sound like an ad for Google but there are many compleing reasons to give this technology a try. The specific reason that interests me at this stage is the ability to take an idea for a site and actually have someplace to host it for free. Maybe there are other offerings similar to this?

The only feedback I have so far is that editing just an html template does not cause the page to be reloaded by the Python server. At least this is the case for me on OS X 10.4. Maybe it works differently on Leopard? Instead making a change to the .py class file does cause the html to be refreshed.

Also, I don't know any Python yet! Java clouds my vision for now.