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There's a sad truth that many of us engineers do not want to accept. The most successful solutions are ones that do not require quality or diligence from the pr

There's a sad truth that many of us engineers do not want to accept. The most successful solutions are ones that do not require quality or diligence from the practitioner. There are absolutely better way to do things than Docker. Pretty much everything about Docker is terrible, but it solves one problem in a very simple way that most anybody can use. That solution is that it creates a fairly portable software package that is easy to create and run. Now there are tons of issues in the way things are created and ran with Docker, but they will all be sufficiently addressed over time. By adding enough things around the edges (better orchestration and resource management tools, better security scanners, etc) the ends goals and needs of "business" will be met. In the end you have a messy solution compensated by a series of tools. The pros outweigh the cons.

notyourday 8y ago
> The most successful solutions are ones that do not require quality or diligence from the practitioner. Until it goes "Boom". In production. With real $$ on the line. And that's where the CTO/VP of Eng recognizes that his developers don't actually understand how their system works and hence can't bring stuff back up in minutes or even hours .
- zemo 8y ago
  you're conflating the success of the technology with the success of its users. If the measure of success for a technology is that a lot of people are using it and working on it, then Docker is tremendously successful. If the measure of success is that the company building it is profitable, I have no idea. If the measure of success is that the founders can raise a lot of money and then take some off the table ... gonna bet successful here; they've raised $248m. Whether or not it's a good way to run applications is entirely irrelevant based on those definitions of success for the technology.
  - ksk 8y ago
    >you're conflating the success of the technology with the success of its users. They were operating on a different definition of success.
mmcnl 8y ago
I'm annoyed by these black-or-white statements. Docker isn't terrible. There are no "better" or "worse" way to do things. It all depends on what you are doing. Sure, applying Docker with the expectation of a silver bullet will leave a lot of people disappointed, but is that a problem with Docker? I think not. As with any abstraction layer, lower levle complexity is abstracted and replaced with a new higher level complexity. Is that good or bad? It depends. It's a boring vague answer, but it is the truth. Saying "Docker is terrible" doesn't help anyone.

notyourday 8y ago

> The most successful solutions are ones that do not require quality or diligence from the practitioner. Until it goes "Boom". In production. With real $$ on the line. And that's where the CTO/VP of Eng recognizes that his developers don't actually understand how their system works and hence can't bring stuff back up in minutes or even hours .

zemo 8y ago
you're conflating the success of the technology with the success of its users. If the measure of success for a technology is that a lot of people are using it and working on it, then Docker is tremendously successful. If the measure of success is that the company building it is profitable, I have no idea. If the measure of success is that the founders can raise a lot of money and then take some off the table ... gonna bet successful here; they've raised $248m. Whether or not it's a good way to run applications is entirely irrelevant based on those definitions of success for the technology.
- ksk 8y ago
  >you're conflating the success of the technology with the success of its users. They were operating on a different definition of success.

mmcnl 8y ago

I'm annoyed by these black-or-white statements. Docker isn't terrible. There are no "better" or "worse" way to do things. It all depends on what you are doing. Sure, applying Docker with the expectation of a silver bullet will leave a lot of people disappointed, but is that a problem with Docker? I think not. As with any abstraction layer, lower levle complexity is abstracted and replaced with a new higher level complexity. Is that good or bad? It depends. It's a boring vague answer, but it is the truth. Saying "Docker is terrible" doesn't help anyone.