Heroku，域名

Question

Quick noob question or two about Heroku.

I have a rails app I would like to deploy on Heroku.

If I want the address to be www.whatevername.ie do I need to purchase this domain name or does the custom domain name feature with Heroku allow me to do this?

Secondly, what is the difference between development and production with regards to deploying an app on Heroku? Once it's deployed and on the net, does this mean it is in fact "in production" so to speak?

Thanks!

Answer 1

If I want the address to be www.whatevername.ie do I need to purchase this domain name or does the custom domain name feature with Heroku allow me to do this?

You need to purchase the domain name.

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Secondly, what is the difference between development and production with regards to deploying an app on Heroku? Once it's deployed and on the net, does this mean it is in fact "in production" so to speak?

Development is what's on your computer locally; production is what's on the internet for all to see (in this case, on Heroku).

Answer 2

Heroku

To answer your questions more fully, you need to appreciate that Heroku is a Platform As A Service - meaning that it will provide the back-end infrastructure for your application, but that's it:

In terms of a domain name, it's not for Heroku to buy you a domain . A domain is literally just a "mask" for an IP address (a shop window), which means you have to buy it (as the DNS system takes a lot to manage & maintain)

Heroku's custom domain feature is simply a means for you to accommodate external domain name traffic to your application. You'll have to buy a domain (we use Namecheap, but there are 1,000's of domain registrars you can use)

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Rails

If you want to run a Rails application, the development and production environments are very important, although not much different than each other.

As mentioned in the referenced question, the underlying differences between "production" and "development" modes / environments for Rails is efficiency. You're running the SAME source code in both environments - the difference is how that source is handled, compiled & served

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Development

• Rails logger is running all the time
• Exceptions are captured & displayed on screen
• Classes are not cached
• Assets are compiled "on the fly" (dynamically handled)
• Typically operated with low-efficiency services (DB / Web Server)
• Loads everything individually for development purposes

Production

• "Assets" precompiled & served statically (for performance)
• Classes can be cached
• Production-grade web & DB servers recommended
• Focus on efficiency & speed

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By default, Heroku will run your Rails application in production mode