What you describe is still not an idempotent build process, which is all I'm arguing against. I'm happy to admit docker images are more portable than declarati

What you describe is still not an idempotent build process, which is all I'm arguing against. I'm happy to admit docker images are more portable than declarative shell script's output. You're arguing against something I'm not saying. I'm talking about how easy it is to make script/docker-image-definitions idempotent, not about their usability, not about their distribution. When I wrote "is this any different from what you do", I meant "what you do to make it idempotent", not is the resulting artifact and usability any different. Same with "any of this easy", "any of this" was "idempotency", not anything else. Everything you are arguing against is a strawman based on misreading the intent of my comment I think.