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Docker is being used to cure diseases, keep planes in the air, to keep soldiers safe from landmines, to power the world’s largest financial networks and institu

Docker is being used to cure diseases, keep planes in the air, to keep soldiers safe from landmines, to power the world’s largest financial networks and institutions Why do this?

jjtheblunt 9y ago
cure diseases : Nobel prize for Hyperbole right there.
ythn 9y ago
Marketing. The same could be said of almost anything though: "[Linux|Raspberry Pi|Angular|Python] is being used to cure diseases, keep planes in the air, to keep soldiers safe from landmines, to power the world’s largest financial networks and institutions
- jacquesm 9y ago
  For Linux, the Raspberry Pi and Python it is probably actually true about the first two, not sure about the landmines, Raspberry Pi in finance I doubt but Linux and Python for sure.
vowelless 9y ago
Wow. But I want to give them a fair opportunity to justify this statement. Can someone give me examples of diseases being cured via docker, or planes being kept in the air (etc)
- meddlepal 9y ago
  Marketing Spin! Somewhere there is probably a system that touches some aspect of those things that use Docker.
  - ben_jones 9y ago
    Our employee bought a plane ticket! Literally keeping airlines in business.
    - shardinator 9y ago
      Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Seems you're just doing a little 'reductio ad absurdum'. Sigh ...
      - ben_jones 9y ago
        Honestly it was a low effort comment that didn't add to the discussion I don't mind. It we pre morning-coffee.
        ajacksified 9y ago
        Pre-coffee commenting, the drunk-texting of Hacker News.
        praneshp 9y ago
        It comes across more like drunk driving to me. Making a mistake, then blaming it on the drink (or lack of coffee here).
        shardinator 9y ago
        What's really funny. I was kind of drunk when I wrote that comment. Re-read it thinking, "that sounds familiar". G'night everyone.
- tyingq 9y ago
  "planes being kept in the air" I assume they mean "minimize time stuck on the tarmac" vs "literally flight critical", but I doubt even that. The former would imply that something like dispatch functions are in production running on docker. I suppose that's possible, but it's not an area that lends itself to tech that's not very solidly proven for the space.
- monatron 9y ago
  Reproducibility is a big problem in analytic pipelines, specifically genomics. Researchers tend tweak their tools here and there and it has always been quite difficult to "package" a pipeline. Docker makes that much easier. We've seen a huge movement in the containerization of genomics pipelines, the results of which (we hope) help cure serious disease. In my world, we're using Docker every day to try and find cures for pediatric brain cancer. It's obviously not our only tool, but it helps.
  - ilovecaching 9y ago
    Neural networks that construct ontologies from gene similarity matrices for discovering cancer pathways are tools that help cure cancer. There are a myriad of technologies supporting these type of applications; Torch, Python, Tensorflow... Docker is a minor detail that has as much to do with curing cancer as JSON or HTTP. When you make a claim like the one Docker is making, you should be a critical piece of the pipeline that actively contributes towards the end goal, not a piece of infrastructure. As a scientist, I find it disgusting that they're using cancer research as their buzz word for stability and importance.
    - tonyhb 9y ago
      > Reproducibility is a big problem in analytic pipelines, specifically genomics... [Docker solves this problem]. There is a legitimate fundamental issue with reproducing people's setups and Docker solves this. Ergo docker is valuable technology for data science. Literally typing `docker run...` to reproduce results (vs. VM setup, installation etc.) seems important enough to justify their phrasing. Fact: there are handfuls of data science startups that essentially rebrand docker and have been funded in the hundreds of millions of dollars specifically to solve this problem.
  - mohaine 9y ago
    Not in genomics but the same in true in spatial pipelines. Trying to get a machine setup with the correct set of libraries and packages across various languages is almost impossible on dev box much less on a prod cluster. Docker makes this easy to do once locally, validate the build and then use the same container to do the production runs.
celim307 9y ago
Hooli vibes
- pthreads 9y ago
  Ha ha ha! Spot on. Gavin would be so proud.
xienze 9y ago
Jeez, everyone from Linus Torvalds to Intel to the freaking power company could take credit for these things. Maybe tone down the "we're saving the world" rhetoric, Docker?
- curun1r 9y ago
  It makes more sense in the context of the criticism that Docker gets. It's a counter to the inane "Docker isn't stable enough, Docker isn't secure enough, Docker isn't whatever enough to use in production" critique that some obstinate old ops person will throw up because they'd rather keep their job comfortable than try to accommodate a need beyond their own. I don't read it as Docker does all those things so much as Docker is used to do all those things and diseases are getting cured, planes aren't falling from the sky, soldiers aren't getting unnecessarily blown up and financial networks are only crumbling due to their own internal negligence. If it can be used in all those situations, it will probably work for your crappy pool-of-app-servers-on-top-of-a-database webapp.
  - jsmthrowaway 9y ago
    > obstinate old ops person will throw up because they'd rather keep their job comfortable than try to accommodate a need beyond their own Oh, come on. This is why I hate Docker. Right here. It's like a heat seeking missile that looks for the friction points between engineering and operations, then explodes in a fireball of "do we really need operations? They're just old and obstinate and in the way of progress," without even really stopping to ask what progress is from the perspective of operations. Some of us like to think of legitimate technical reasons to push back on Docker in our own circumstances and deployments (some of us even read code to help make that determination), but I suppose your dichotomy would be fun to navigate for everyone involved. I've definitely been in environments where one side characterizes operational pushback as change reticence, which immediately personalizes the discussion. That's a tough environment in which to argue, especially when you're arguing with people who will not be on call for the crap they are trying to deliver to you. The casual ageism in your comment is, sadly, expected. I'm growing accustomed to HN considering it acceptable to go after "old" and "operations" with equal vigor, which speaks more broadly to worrying trends in our industry. I'm 31 and have devoted my career to operations, and I already have an exit plan. That should say something about the industry, and I think this comment is a fine microcosm of that.
jstanley 9y ago
It probably just means some company that works in pharmaceuticals uses Docker for something, and another company that works in aerospace uses Docker for something, etc.
sz4kerto 9y ago
> keep planes in the air 'We really need to land, but the container responsible for landing navigation has crashed and I can't restart it because Docker complains that the endpoint is already registered on the overlay network' 'Just delete /var/lib/docker and re-pull.'
- jameskegel 9y ago
  There's that familiar chest pain again.
- user5994461 9y ago
  Rest assured! Docker will never be allowed inside a plane. All plane software must be certified DO-178. For starters, that means 100% code coverage.
fs111 9y ago
The thing is that all these things can be done w/o docker at all. It may make it simpler (for some definition of "simpler"), but it is not necessary to do any of these things. Now the Linux kernel on which docker is built OTOH is probably not so easy to take away.
MichaelBurge 9y ago
Somebody should buy a television ad for them: "Feeling tired? Ask your doctor if Docker is right for you". Include an actor in a lab coat, with a quote from the CEO saying "Docker is being used to cure diseases".
j_s 9y ago
Reminds me of the old Voodoo 3dfx commercial (the "save the planet" part, except serious) https://youtube.com/watch?v=ldiYYJNnQUk https://youtube.com/watch?v=ldiYYJNnQUk The docker marketing team does seem to be accomplishing their intended purpose, but their preeminence in the company's decision-making does rub the cynical dev crowd the wrong way!
simonebrunozzi 9y ago
Same thought here. What an arrogant, useless statement.
sargun 9y ago
Because containers make life every so slightly less terrible? And container orchestration allows for better efficiency of resources? The following government entities are known to use, or have used (Docker) containers: * USAF * US Navy * CFPB * CDC You can look up their RFPs online and see why they want to use containers. IMHO, these are pretty direct ways of keeping soldiers safe, and curing disease.
user5994461 9y ago
The largest financial systems are running on COBOL/mainframes. Planes are running on embedded microcontrollers still written in C or Ada. (They can't even get the approval to write C++). Docker is not 1% ready for critical use. The day these things will use Docker, planes will fall and we'll have the next financial crisis. As someone who worked both in finance and aerospace, handling systems that traded billions of dollars and planes that were carrying hundreds of passengers. This is my testimony on the year we tried to use Docker in production: http://thehftguy.com/2016/11/01/docker-in-production-an-history-of-failure/ http://thehftguy.com/2016/11/01/docker-in-production-an-hist...

Docker is being used to cure diseases, keep planes in the air, to keep soldiers safe from landmines, to power the world’s largest financial networks and institutions Why do this?

jjtheblunt 9y ago

cure diseases : Nobel prize for Hyperbole right there.

ythn 9y ago

Marketing. The same could be said of almost anything though: "[Linux|Raspberry Pi|Angular|Python] is being used to cure diseases, keep planes in the air, to keep soldiers safe from landmines, to power the world’s largest financial networks and institutions

jacquesm 9y ago
For Linux, the Raspberry Pi and Python it is probably actually true about the first two, not sure about the landmines, Raspberry Pi in finance I doubt but Linux and Python for sure.

vowelless 9y ago

Wow. But I want to give them a fair opportunity to justify this statement. Can someone give me examples of diseases being cured via docker, or planes being kept in the air (etc)

meddlepal 9y ago
Marketing Spin! Somewhere there is probably a system that touches some aspect of those things that use Docker.
- ben_jones 9y ago
  Our employee bought a plane ticket! Literally keeping airlines in business.
  - shardinator 9y ago
    Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Seems you're just doing a little 'reductio ad absurdum'. Sigh ...
    - ben_jones 9y ago
      Honestly it was a low effort comment that didn't add to the discussion I don't mind. It we pre morning-coffee.
      - ajacksified 9y ago
        Pre-coffee commenting, the drunk-texting of Hacker News.
        praneshp 9y ago
        It comes across more like drunk driving to me. Making a mistake, then blaming it on the drink (or lack of coffee here).
        shardinator 9y ago
        What's really funny. I was kind of drunk when I wrote that comment. Re-read it thinking, "that sounds familiar". G'night everyone.
tyingq 9y ago
"planes being kept in the air" I assume they mean "minimize time stuck on the tarmac" vs "literally flight critical", but I doubt even that. The former would imply that something like dispatch functions are in production running on docker. I suppose that's possible, but it's not an area that lends itself to tech that's not very solidly proven for the space.
monatron 9y ago
Reproducibility is a big problem in analytic pipelines, specifically genomics. Researchers tend tweak their tools here and there and it has always been quite difficult to "package" a pipeline. Docker makes that much easier. We've seen a huge movement in the containerization of genomics pipelines, the results of which (we hope) help cure serious disease. In my world, we're using Docker every day to try and find cures for pediatric brain cancer. It's obviously not our only tool, but it helps.
- ilovecaching 9y ago
  Neural networks that construct ontologies from gene similarity matrices for discovering cancer pathways are tools that help cure cancer. There are a myriad of technologies supporting these type of applications; Torch, Python, Tensorflow... Docker is a minor detail that has as much to do with curing cancer as JSON or HTTP. When you make a claim like the one Docker is making, you should be a critical piece of the pipeline that actively contributes towards the end goal, not a piece of infrastructure. As a scientist, I find it disgusting that they're using cancer research as their buzz word for stability and importance.
  - tonyhb 9y ago
    > Reproducibility is a big problem in analytic pipelines, specifically genomics... [Docker solves this problem]. There is a legitimate fundamental issue with reproducing people's setups and Docker solves this. Ergo docker is valuable technology for data science. Literally typing `docker run...` to reproduce results (vs. VM setup, installation etc.) seems important enough to justify their phrasing. Fact: there are handfuls of data science startups that essentially rebrand docker and have been funded in the hundreds of millions of dollars specifically to solve this problem.
- mohaine 9y ago
  Not in genomics but the same in true in spatial pipelines. Trying to get a machine setup with the correct set of libraries and packages across various languages is almost impossible on dev box much less on a prod cluster. Docker makes this easy to do once locally, validate the build and then use the same container to do the production runs.

celim307 9y ago

Hooli vibes

pthreads 9y ago
Ha ha ha! Spot on. Gavin would be so proud.

xienze 9y ago

Jeez, everyone from Linus Torvalds to Intel to the freaking power company could take credit for these things. Maybe tone down the "we're saving the world" rhetoric, Docker?

curun1r 9y ago
It makes more sense in the context of the criticism that Docker gets. It's a counter to the inane "Docker isn't stable enough, Docker isn't secure enough, Docker isn't whatever enough to use in production" critique that some obstinate old ops person will throw up because they'd rather keep their job comfortable than try to accommodate a need beyond their own. I don't read it as Docker does all those things so much as Docker is used to do all those things and diseases are getting cured, planes aren't falling from the sky, soldiers aren't getting unnecessarily blown up and financial networks are only crumbling due to their own internal negligence. If it can be used in all those situations, it will probably work for your crappy pool-of-app-servers-on-top-of-a-database webapp.
- jsmthrowaway 9y ago
  > obstinate old ops person will throw up because they'd rather keep their job comfortable than try to accommodate a need beyond their own Oh, come on. This is why I hate Docker. Right here. It's like a heat seeking missile that looks for the friction points between engineering and operations, then explodes in a fireball of "do we really need operations? They're just old and obstinate and in the way of progress," without even really stopping to ask what progress is from the perspective of operations. Some of us like to think of legitimate technical reasons to push back on Docker in our own circumstances and deployments (some of us even read code to help make that determination), but I suppose your dichotomy would be fun to navigate for everyone involved. I've definitely been in environments where one side characterizes operational pushback as change reticence, which immediately personalizes the discussion. That's a tough environment in which to argue, especially when you're arguing with people who will not be on call for the crap they are trying to deliver to you. The casual ageism in your comment is, sadly, expected. I'm growing accustomed to HN considering it acceptable to go after "old" and "operations" with equal vigor, which speaks more broadly to worrying trends in our industry. I'm 31 and have devoted my career to operations, and I already have an exit plan. That should say something about the industry, and I think this comment is a fine microcosm of that.

jstanley 9y ago

It probably just means some company that works in pharmaceuticals uses Docker for something, and another company that works in aerospace uses Docker for something, etc.

sz4kerto 9y ago

> keep planes in the air 'We really need to land, but the container responsible for landing navigation has crashed and I can't restart it because Docker complains that the endpoint is already registered on the overlay network' 'Just delete /var/lib/docker and re-pull.'

jameskegel 9y ago
There's that familiar chest pain again.
user5994461 9y ago
Rest assured! Docker will never be allowed inside a plane. All plane software must be certified DO-178. For starters, that means 100% code coverage.

fs111 9y ago

The thing is that all these things can be done w/o docker at all. It may make it simpler (for some definition of "simpler"), but it is not necessary to do any of these things. Now the Linux kernel on which docker is built OTOH is probably not so easy to take away.

MichaelBurge 9y ago

Somebody should buy a television ad for them: "Feeling tired? Ask your doctor if Docker is right for you". Include an actor in a lab coat, with a quote from the CEO saying "Docker is being used to cure diseases".

j_s 9y ago

Reminds me of the old Voodoo 3dfx commercial (the "save the planet" part, except serious) https://youtube.com/watch?v=ldiYYJNnQUk https://youtube.com/watch?v=ldiYYJNnQUk The docker marketing team does seem to be accomplishing their intended purpose, but their preeminence in the company's decision-making does rub the cynical dev crowd the wrong way!

simonebrunozzi 9y ago

Same thought here. What an arrogant, useless statement.

sargun 9y ago

Because containers make life every so slightly less terrible? And container orchestration allows for better efficiency of resources? The following government entities are known to use, or have used (Docker) containers: * USAF * US Navy * CFPB * CDC You can look up their RFPs online and see why they want to use containers. IMHO, these are pretty direct ways of keeping soldiers safe, and curing disease.

user5994461 9y ago

The largest financial systems are running on COBOL/mainframes. Planes are running on embedded microcontrollers still written in C or Ada. (They can't even get the approval to write C++). Docker is not 1% ready for critical use. The day these things will use Docker, planes will fall and we'll have the next financial crisis. As someone who worked both in finance and aerospace, handling systems that traded billions of dollars and planes that were carrying hundreds of passengers. This is my testimony on the year we tried to use Docker in production: http://thehftguy.com/2016/11/01/docker-in-production-an-history-of-failure/ http://thehftguy.com/2016/11/01/docker-in-production-an-hist...