I think if you’re a DevOps person in any capacity, the utility of Docker is very clear. Your things run in containers that are identical everywhere. Assuming Docker is working/running, the code will execute in a reliably consistent way whether that is Docker running on some developer’s computer, or a sky computer. The (massive) appeal there is that bugs will happen consistently. “Production-only” bugs become a thing of the past. There are other benefits, too, like shipping a dev environment to a team of developers that is entirely consistent, even across platforms, rather than battling with individual developers computers.
So… great? Use it all the time for everything? The stopper there is that it’s complicated, and web dev is already friggin complicated and it often just feels like too much. Andrew Welch, however, makes the case that you don’t have to learn Docker super deeply in order to use it:
Docker is a devops tool that some people find intimidating because there is much to learn in order to build things with it. And while that’s true, it’s actually quite simple to start using Docker for some very practical and useful things, by leveraging what other people have created.
Fair point. I don’t deeply understand most of the technology I use, but I can still use it.
While I run Docker all day for CodePen’s fancy dev environment, that’s what my use is limited to. I don’t reach for it like Andrew does for everything. But I can see how it might feel liberating having all that isolation between projects. One of my favorite of points that Andrew makes is:
Switching to a new computer is easy. You don’t have to spend hours meticulously reconfiguring your shiny new MacBook Pro with all the interconnected tools & packages you need.
I find myself bopping around between computers fairly often for various odd reasons, and being able to make the switch with minimal fussing around is appealing.
Direct Link →
