Google BigQuery Analytics

Chapter 8Putting It Together

The first one-half of the book describes the mechanics of how you interact with BigQuery at different layers of the programming stack; covering the low level HTTP transport all the way up to the command-line and web client. The following chapters cover more advanced uses of BigQuery by exploring the query language and how to assemble basic operations into useful solutions. This chapter in the middle of the book is a bit of a diversion. It covers the construction of a toy application involving Android, App Engine, and a few JavaScript frameworks—all of which are quite independent of BigQuery. The point of building an application involving these pieces and BigQuery is to concretely demonstrate how the service can be leveraged in a real application.

One important caveat is that the application code is not actually production code. Production code with all the requirements of testability and comprehensive error handling tends to obscure the core functionality. The code samples that accompany this chapter provide a complete application while allowing you to quickly see how the various pieces fit together. Even the discussion in the chapter focuses on the parts where the different components integrate with each other because those tend to be the most interesting. Also, no attempt has been made to strictly adhere to the best practices of any of the platforms other than BigQuery. After all, this is a book about BigQuery, and a number of excellent books and ...