Brian Genisio's House of Bilz

Series Overview

<< An Example Backbone/Parse.com App

The Todos example was extremely easy to get up and running with Heroku.  Even though this is a CoffeeScript based server running with Node.js, Heroku can support the application.  I won’t go over the install process for the pre-requisites (Git and Heroku) because it is easy to find on the web.  Assuming they are installed, deploy the app like this:

Pull down the Todos example

> git clone git@github.com:BrianGenisio/todos-parseback.git

Create the Heroku app

> heroku create -s cedar yourappname
Creating yourappname… done, stack is cedar
http://yourappname.herokuapp.com/ | git@heroku.com:yourappname.git
Git remote heroku added

Create file: package.json

{
  "name": "yourappname",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "dependencies": {
    "express": "2.5.0",
    "coffee-script": "1.1.3",
    "restler": "0.2.1"
  }
}

Install the packages locally (for testing)

> npm install

Configure and test the app

> cp config.coffee.example config.coffee

Edit config.coffee per the steps in the previous article and run it:

> coffee proxy.coffee

Point your browser to http://localhost:3001 and play.  Everything should be working right now locally.  Next, lets get it up on Heroku.

Create file: run.js

# Necessary because Heroku can’t run CoffeeScript directly
require("coffee-script");
require("./proxy.coffee");

Create file: Procfile

web: node run.js

Deploy to Heroku (via git)

> git add .

> git commit -m "Adding Heroku files"

create mode 100644 run.js

> git push heroku master

Counting objects: 23, done.

Delta compression using up to 4 threads.

Total 23 (delta 1), reused 17 (delta 0)

—–> Heroku receiving push

—–> Node.js app detected

       http://yourappname.herokuapp.com deployed to Heroku

To git@heroku.com:yourappname.git

* [new branch]      master –> master

Try it out

> heroku open

Opening http://yourappname.herokuapp.com/

That’s it!

Seriously.  That was easy.  Now the app is hosted.  Heroku and Parse.com do all the dirty work for you.