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Happy to read this here, somehow any topic related to Docker on here ends up with someone saying Docker brings nothing new to the table except for a propietary

by mmcnl 7y ago

Happy to read this here, somehow any topic related to Docker on here ends up with someone saying Docker brings nothing new to the table except for a propietary API and you could just as well use LCX or whatever. I can personally see from inside a big corporation how Docker (or containerization) has a huge impact in how "easy" it becomes for developers to build and run their own code. Without Docker everything new becomes a project on its own where you need to call in "ops" for the smallest of things. Not anymore. Ofcourse this has some other downsides, but in general it's a massive step forward.

harikb 7y ago
Being in a technology focused site, there is nothing wrong in trying to give some credit to underlying technology and those who wrote it instead of just focusing on those who commercialized it.
- acdha 7y ago
  This is not wrong but it leaves out a huge amount of hard work which wasn’t in the cool kernel hacking space. LXC is a significant accomplishment but Docker solves a number of other non-trivial problems which made mainstream adoption harder – it’s like the people who say Apple just copied someone else who had a touchscreen device without comparing the whole product.
- derefr 7y ago
  But, frequently, commercialization feeds the "development" half of R&D. Companies like Docker Inc. often end up paying the lion's share of the salaries of the people doing the FOSS work to upstream and maintain the technologies they build upon.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
eloff 7y ago
> someone saying Docker brings nothing new to the table except for a propietary API and you could just as well use LCX or whatever Probably the same people who said Dropbox brings nothing new over rsync. Making something easier and bringing it to more people (two halves of the same thing) is a BIG value add. Often the majority of the value.
- ci5er 7y ago
  :-) Not quite! I wrote my own rsync-like-toolset before rsync itself was released (far too late, when you think of it!), and I immediately loved DropBox. Maybe because I am dev, AND I am ops, or maybe because (unlike DropBox) I am not sharing folders with my mother, but more likely, because I'm an idiot (everyone tells me "Catcher in the Rye" is great - and after having read it every 3rd year for nigh on 30 years, I still don't get it), but I don't really understand the appeal of docker. Sure, I can use it, because you kind of have to these days, and I don't really find it objectionable, but it seems like there is a whole lot of "something there" that I'm missing. At this point, I'll probably never understand the benefit of. It won't be the last tech ritual I will have to endure before I die...
  - mplanchard 7y ago
    Not OT for the thread, but you’re not alone with Catcher in the Rye. I first read it in my 20s and just did not like it at all. I’ve got friends who say that it helps to have read it as a teenager, because it’s easier to identify with Holden, but man, reading it now I just get so tired of his whining. I’m going to keep trying, probably, because so far it’s one of the only big classics I haven’t liked. Anyway, maybe we’re both idiots!
    - ci5er 7y ago
      Ha! I started in my mid-teens. I was told: "It changed my life!". I've read it every three years or so (even for the decade-plus that I've lived out of the US, once in Japanese!), and ... I just don't get it. I probably don't get Moby Dick either, but I find it to be remarkably funny, and not a whiney teenager, so I'm going to give it a pass. Thanks for the comment. I have a bit of a hang-up about how much I don't get "The Great American Novel" (as a born-and-bred rural American, I should get those, you know? :-) )
tuldia 7y ago
> Without Docker everything new becomes a project on its own where you need to call in "ops" for the smallest of things. I hope that one day we will stop echoing that or framing it as a bad thing. It's always good to involve people. Writing, build and running software is a shared responsibility. I truly believe that if you be nice with your ops, explain what you want to achieve, they will help you. It is a two-way street. It is not a tool that will "fix" how humans interact. Also, put yourself in their shoes, it could be that: "With Docker everything new becomes a snowflake on its own where you need to call in "dev" for the smallest of things." -- or uncompress the image and look around how/what a specific image does things when it start, place app/config/data files, etc...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lostcolony 7y ago
  Depends on the incentives placed on ops. All too often, they're responsible to handle things breaking, but not responsible for getting features out the door. Hence, they become a huge gate to get anything out; they have no incentive to help you. Meanwhile, you get dev owning some of the operational burden, and it works pretty well. Until you have compliance needs to separate them.
- etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
  I remember working at a startup with separate ops and no docker. I just remember it causing a lot of friction and it slowed us down. I see no reason why ops people wouldn't enjoy docker just as much as devs. I found it cleaner on average than system config trackers like ansible or puppet, and could reduce the complexity of your configuration management.
- stjohnswarts 7y ago
  If a dev can do it on his own without assistance with minimal issues then having someone to "maintain" the install is just dumb.
killerstorm 7y ago
Can you explain how you run things using Docker? Not on your machine, but on production, how is that supposed to work using the official tool chain?

by mmcnl 7y ago

harikb 7y ago

Being in a technology focused site, there is nothing wrong in trying to give some credit to underlying technology and those who wrote it instead of just focusing on those who commercialized it.

acdha 7y ago
This is not wrong but it leaves out a huge amount of hard work which wasn’t in the cool kernel hacking space. LXC is a significant accomplishment but Docker solves a number of other non-trivial problems which made mainstream adoption harder – it’s like the people who say Apple just copied someone else who had a touchscreen device without comparing the whole product.
derefr 7y ago
But, frequently, commercialization feeds the "development" half of R&D. Companies like Docker Inc. often end up paying the lion's share of the salaries of the people doing the FOSS work to upstream and maintain the technologies they build upon.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

eloff 7y ago

> someone saying Docker brings nothing new to the table except for a propietary API and you could just as well use LCX or whatever Probably the same people who said Dropbox brings nothing new over rsync. Making something easier and bringing it to more people (two halves of the same thing) is a BIG value add. Often the majority of the value.

ci5er 7y ago
:-) Not quite! I wrote my own rsync-like-toolset before rsync itself was released (far too late, when you think of it!), and I immediately loved DropBox. Maybe because I am dev, AND I am ops, or maybe because (unlike DropBox) I am not sharing folders with my mother, but more likely, because I'm an idiot (everyone tells me "Catcher in the Rye" is great - and after having read it every 3rd year for nigh on 30 years, I still don't get it), but I don't really understand the appeal of docker. Sure, I can use it, because you kind of have to these days, and I don't really find it objectionable, but it seems like there is a whole lot of "something there" that I'm missing. At this point, I'll probably never understand the benefit of. It won't be the last tech ritual I will have to endure before I die...
- mplanchard 7y ago
  Not OT for the thread, but you’re not alone with Catcher in the Rye. I first read it in my 20s and just did not like it at all. I’ve got friends who say that it helps to have read it as a teenager, because it’s easier to identify with Holden, but man, reading it now I just get so tired of his whining. I’m going to keep trying, probably, because so far it’s one of the only big classics I haven’t liked. Anyway, maybe we’re both idiots!
  - ci5er 7y ago
    Ha! I started in my mid-teens. I was told: "It changed my life!". I've read it every three years or so (even for the decade-plus that I've lived out of the US, once in Japanese!), and ... I just don't get it. I probably don't get Moby Dick either, but I find it to be remarkably funny, and not a whiney teenager, so I'm going to give it a pass. Thanks for the comment. I have a bit of a hang-up about how much I don't get "The Great American Novel" (as a born-and-bred rural American, I should get those, you know? :-) )

tuldia 7y ago

> Without Docker everything new becomes a project on its own where you need to call in "ops" for the smallest of things. I hope that one day we will stop echoing that or framing it as a bad thing. It's always good to involve people. Writing, build and running software is a shared responsibility. I truly believe that if you be nice with your ops, explain what you want to achieve, they will help you. It is a two-way street. It is not a tool that will "fix" how humans interact. Also, put yourself in their shoes, it could be that: "With Docker everything new becomes a snowflake on its own where you need to call in "dev" for the smallest of things." -- or uncompress the image and look around how/what a specific image does things when it start, place app/config/data files, etc...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lostcolony 7y ago
Depends on the incentives placed on ops. All too often, they're responsible to handle things breaking, but not responsible for getting features out the door. Hence, they become a huge gate to get anything out; they have no incentive to help you. Meanwhile, you get dev owning some of the operational burden, and it works pretty well. Until you have compliance needs to separate them.
etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
I remember working at a startup with separate ops and no docker. I just remember it causing a lot of friction and it slowed us down. I see no reason why ops people wouldn't enjoy docker just as much as devs. I found it cleaner on average than system config trackers like ansible or puppet, and could reduce the complexity of your configuration management.
stjohnswarts 7y ago
If a dev can do it on his own without assistance with minimal issues then having someone to "maintain" the install is just dumb.

killerstorm 7y ago

Can you explain how you run things using Docker? Not on your machine, but on production, how is that supposed to work using the official tool chain?