Detailed steps for setup?

[bitops]

Hey Alexis, I tried following along with your blog post and this README to get a sample application up on Heroku using this buildpack. It seems like there are some details either left out, or you are assuming a knowledge of Racket.

I'm totally new to Racket so it's a little confusing.

Some questions:

• do I need to name my application file anything specific?
• what is an info.rkt file and what contents does it need?

Maybe if you had a sample application that was deployable using this buildpack that could serve as a great template. I'd be happy to help create it! :smile:

[lexi-lambda]

As it turns out, I do have the code for the sample app available on GitHub here. Unfortunately, I have been a little bit aware that it is actually inaccurate—that app will build okay on Heroku simply because its dependencies are in the main distribution, but it should really declare its dependencies since that’s a pretty brittle guarantee.

To answer your questions more directly:

• Nope, you don’t need to name your app file anything specific because you will specify what the entrypoint is in Heroku’s Procfile. I recommended using the -l flag when running your app which will run the relevant file without tying things to the filesystem, which I don’t guarantee won’t change at some point.
• An info.rkt file is a file that expresses the dependencies for your app. More generally, an info.rkt file is part of the Racket package system which specifies all sorts of package metadata. This buildpack assumes your application is, itself, a Racket package, mostly so it knows how to install the modules to a particular location and so that it can manage dependencies.

I do see that these things could easily be elements of confusion, though, so I will work on making the sample app easier to understand. I do have a few small apps I have deployed using this buildpack myself, but none of them are currently open-source... perhaps I should consider opening them.

[bitops]

@lexi-lambda that would be really awesome! I feel like there's an upswing of interest in Racket at the moment (thanks John Carmack!) and one of the first things people want to do when they learn a new language is build a web app in it. Not that that always makes sense, but hey... :smile_cat:

[lexi-lambda]

I should note that I open-source a small (but hopefully practical/more real-world) Racket application that uses this buildpack a couple months ago, which is here: https://github.com/lexi-lambda/litpub

I’m not sure if that helps, but it’s worth noting for posterity.

[bitops]

Thanks!

On Jul 8, 2016, at 7:21 PM, Alexis King [email protected] wrote:

I should note that I open-source a small (but hopefully practical/more real-world) Racket application that uses this buildpack a couple months ago, which is here: https://github.com/lexi-lambda/litpub https://github.com/lexi-lambda/litpub I’m not sure if that helps, but it’s worth noting for posterity.

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