Awhile ago I tried reading about Google App Engine, from its site and from the Wikipedia article. What I realized was that not only did I not understand what it did, I didn't even know what problem it was solving.
I am a competent programmer in a variety of languages, but I have little experience with large frameworks. Is there a book/site that explains cloud computing in a way similar to how "Programming with POSIX Threads" explains threading, ie identifying specific problems and the mechanics of how they are solved, from a programmer's perspective?
I tend to be a low-level bits-bytes-and-memory-addresses sort of person, so abstract explanations of the architecture tend to give me a giddy and uneasy feeling. I suppose cloud computing can't be understood at the byte-level, but the lower down it is the better I'll understand it.
