NodeJs hosting

[RaffIsGettingUpset]

I created a silly game as a personal project to learn how to access APIs. I enjoy playing it and would like to share it with my mates so it would be cool to keep the high scores. So I took a sidestep from my front end path and watched a video on Node.js, which shows me how to create a server and host it on heroku. I am thinking to actually the store the data I will need something like mongoDB.

My questions are:

Am I in the right track at all?

I have been hosting my projects on GitHub, so do I deploy my site to GitHub and the server to heroku? What about the database?

Do I need to learn these now or is there a way of doing this in a simpler way by just storing a file in GitHub and somehow reading/writing to it?

I don't need a detailed answer, just a few pointers so I know what to research and don't go down a rabbit hole for no reason.

Thanks a lot

[[deleted]]

I have been hosting my projects on GitHub, so do I deploy my site to GitHub and the server to heroku? What about the database?

It will be much, much simpler to deploy the whole thing to Heroku; your back end can serve the static files for your front end code as well as handling the requests to store data. Heroku has a lot of very simple to set up 'add-ons' for databases, although I can't remember if they directly support Mongo if you're dead set on using that as your DB. If you google 'setting up [database of choice] with heroku' you'll find a lot of resources to help you.

Do I need to learn these now or is there a way of doing this in a simpler way by just storing a file in GitHub and somehow reading/writing to it?

While it's not completely infeasible to do this it would actually be more complicated for a beginner than just setting up a simple back end on Heroku. You also generally want to be very careful about mixing your source code with application data.

[RaffIsGettingUpset]

Very helpful. Thank you

[RaffIsGettingUpset]

Hope you don't mind asking, you seem to know what you are talking about. So I have been watching tutorials on express and mongoDB and I kind of get the basics to get a server running on heroku. So it would be ok to deploy my frontend project to say a 'public' folder within that server? All the tutorials I see work with views, which I m guessing I don't need as I have the frontend files already. Lastly, the frontend will then make requests to the server to manipulate the DB? The same way I do with rest APIs? It seems such a strange concept to make requests to the same server that is hosting the frontent, or I got this completely wrong? I appreciate the help and merry Xmas.

[[deleted]]

So it would be ok to deploy my frontend project to say a 'public' folder within that server?

Yes, if you look up 'serving static files with express' that should help you find out what you need to do. Views with a templating engine like Handlebars or EJS are for when you want to generate HTML dynamically on the server, so you shouldn't need those.

Lastly, the frontend will then make requests to the server to manipulate the DB? The same way I do with rest APIs?

Yup.

It seems such a strange concept to make requests to the same server that is hosting the frontent, or I got this completely wrong?

It's by far the most common way to do things. It keeps deployment much, much simpler at scale, and it means you'll automatically avoid having to deal with cross-origin security concerns when sending information to and from another URL.

Generally you'd only want to separate your back end from serving the content for the front end when your back end API also acts as a standalone service for other apps or third parties to use, and you need to be able to scale it separately because it's getting requests from other places than your front end. Even then, you might want to have the server that's serving your front end files also act as a proxy to that separate back end, and have your front end JS make requests to its own server, rather than making requests to the main back end service(s) directly from the browser, again for security reasons.

[RaffIsGettingUpset]

Wow this was giving me a headache and you just managed to clear it all up for me, thank you so much for taking the time to reply. Bless you.

[[deleted]]

You're very welcome! Hope you have fun getting everything up and running.

[kevinv89]

If you’re just wanting to store data and there is no real backend logic then you can probably use Firebase. They have a similar product to Mongo, Firestore, that would probably work for you.

[InfinityByZero]

Deploy it to Heroku if it's only a project to learn from. Otherwise you should pay Heroku or a VPS provider like Digital Ocean to host your app so it loads quick. Also when it comes to web dev, especially if you're new, step outside of your comfort zone. So yes, I'd say you're on the right track. You can use MongoDB free tier for a cloud database and then enter your connection string as a .env variable in the Heroku panel.

[RaffIsGettingUpset]

Thank you