Foot, meet gun

Google Analytics does some pretty cool stuff, but has one major drawback for mobile web application developers: it's Javascript-based, meaning that hits from mobile devices that don't speak Javascript silently go untracked. Recently, the Analytics team released some code that does server-side tracking; the linked ZIP file contains source and examples in ASP, JSP, PHP and Perl. Why not Python, you might wonder? I wondered too, particularly since an AppEngine project I'm working on is at least somewhat intended for phones (hey, you never know when you might be away from your desk but really want to know if a certain BioBrick exists), so I did a little poking around to see if it was possible to instrument an AppEngine application using server-side Mobile Analytics.

( The short answer is no. )