Google Earth Engine

Purpose: use GEE's server-side model correctly. The recurring failure modes are client/server confusion (calling .getInfo() in loops, Python if on server objects), unbounded computation (timeouts from unscaled reductions), and silent default scales (statistics computed at the wrong resolution).

Mental model — everything is deferred

ee.Image, ee.ImageCollection, ee.FeatureCollection are server-side descriptions, not data. Nothing computes until an output is requested (getInfo, export, map tile). Consequences: