I wrote this short article after showing my 11 years old boy howto develop a simple web app.
We using a mac but it works just as well with windows or some linux flavour (or any other OS).
Preparations
Three applications needs to be installed and you need to register for a free Heroku account:
- NodeJS and npm - http://nodejs.org/download/
- Heroku account and toolbelt
- Register for an account at https://id.heroku.com/signup
- Download toolbelt - https://toolbelt.heroku.com/
- git - download at http://git-scm.com/downloads
A text editor is also needed. we're using nano which is included in OSX, this way we only need a terminal window and the browser.
Open a terminal window and do this:
>heroku login
Enter the mail adress and login you registered with heroku.
Article 1
Create a folder to put the app in:
>mkdir web-appar
>cd web-appar
>mkdir hello
>cd hello
Create a git repository (just google git for an introduction) and create a new heroku app:
>git init
>heroku create
Create these three files.
app.js:
>nano app.js
var express = require('express');
var PORT = process.env.PORT || 8080;
var app = express();
app.get('/', function (req, res){
res.send('hello everyone i am Algolt and i am eleven years old.');
});
app.get('/bajs', function (req, res){
res.send('Harry loves poop.');
});
app.listen(PORT);
console.log('running on http://localhost:' + PORT);
package.json:
nano package.json
{
"name":"algot-app",
"dependencies": {
"express": "*"
}
}
Procfile:
>nano Procfile
web: node app.js
Try to run the app on the local computer:
>npm install
>node app.js
Open http://localhost:8080 in your favorite browser.
Then hit ctrl+c
in the terminal to stop the web server.
Publish the app to heroku:
>git add .
>git commit -am "my first app"
>git push heroku master
This will open the heroku app in a browser:
>heroku open