Of cause, most Google+ tools will become obsolete by the time Google releases the official API. On the other hand, getting into it is a typical nerdy approach, that I love: Play around with the newest toys, see what can be done with them.

Personally, that's what drives me in this case: Learn something new, do some creative coding (without having to invest too much time like working on a 'real' project), provide something useful for those, who also already tamper with it, have fun. And maybe we stumble upon a useful idea, which can be extended, once the official API is out.

In my view, that makes it worth the effort.

He may have spent too much time, but it wasn't setting up the repository - two steps on Github and a copy-paste some shell commands - nor the hosting - creating a GAE project takes five minutes or so.