7 ms·

> The OCI Distribution Spec is not great, it does not read like a specification that was carefully designed. That’s par for everything around Docker and contai

> The OCI Distribution Spec is not great, it does not read like a specification that was carefully designed. That’s par for everything around Docker and containers. As a user experience Docker is amazing, but as technology it is hot garbage. That’s not as much of a dig on it as it might sound: it really was revolutionary; it really did make using Linux namespaces radically easier than they had ever been; it really did change the world for the better. But it has always prioritised experience over technology. That’s not even really a bad thing! Just as there are tons of boring companies solving expensive problems with Perl or with CSVs being FTPed around, there is a lot of value in delivering boring or even bad tech in a good package. It’s just sometimes it gets sad thinking how much better things could be.

belter 2y ago
Was it really so amazing? Here is half a Docker implementation, in about 100 lines of Bash... https://github.com/p8952/bocker https://github.com/p8952/bocker
- samlinnfer 2y ago
  The other half is the other 90%. Looking at it now, it won't even run in the latest systemd, which now refuses to boot with cgroups v1. Good luck even accessing /dev/null under cgroups v2 with systemd.
- redserk 2y ago
  Lines of code is irrelevant. Docker is important because: 1) it made a convenient process to build a “system” image of sorts, upload it, download it, and run it. 2) (the important bit!) Enough people adopted this process for it to become basically a standard Before Docker, it wasnt uncommon to ship some complicated apps in VMs. Packaging those was downright awful with all of the bespoke scripting needed for the various steps of distribution. And then you get a new job? Time to learn a brand new process.
  - Twirrim 2y ago
    I guess Docker has been around long enough now that people have forgotten just how much of an absolute pain it used to end up being. Just how often I'd have to repeat the joke Them: "Well, it works on my machine!" Me: "Great, back up your email, we're putting your laptop in production..."
- greiskul 2y ago
  And like the famous hacker news comment goes, Dropbox is trivial by just using FTP, curlftpfs and SVN. Docker might have many faults, but for anybody that dealt with the problems that it aimed to solve do know in that it was revolutionary in simplifying things. And for people that disagree, please write a library like TestContainers using cobbled together bash scripts, that can download and cleanly execute and then clean up almost any common use backend dependency.
KronisLV 2y ago
> As a user experience Docker is amazing, but as technology it is hot garbage. I mean, Podman exists, as do lots of custom build tools and other useful options. Personally, I mostly just stick with vanilla Docker (and Compose/Swarm), because it's pretty coherent and everything just fits together, even if it isn't always perfect. Either way, agreed about the concepts behind the technology making things better for a lot of folks out there, myself included (haven't had prod issues with mismatched packages or inconsistent environments in years at this point, most of my personal stuff also runs on containers).
steve1977 2y ago
> it really did change the world for the better. I don’t know about that (hyperbole aside). I’ve been in IT for more than 25 years now. I can’t see that Docker container actually delivered any tangible benefits in terms of end-product reliability or velocity of development to be honest. This might not necessarily be Dockers fault though, maybe it’s just that all the potential benefits get eaten up by things like web development frameworks and Kubernetes. But at the end of the day, todays Docker-based web app development delivers less than fat-client desktop app development delivered 20 years ago, as sad as that is.
- supriyo-biswas 2y ago
  Being able to create a portable artifact with only the userspace components in it, and that can be shipped and run anywhere with minimal fuss is something that didn't really exist before containers.
  - docandrew 2y ago
    Java?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
      There were multiple ways to do it as long as you stayed inside one very narrow ecosystem; JARs from the JVM, Python's virtualenv, kind of PHP, I think Ruby had something? But containers gave you a single way to do it for any of those ecosystems. Docker lets you run a particular JVM with its JARs, and an exact version of the database behind that application, and the Ruby on Rails in front of it, and all these parts use the same format and commands.
- pyrale 2y ago
  > But at the end of the day, todays Docker-based web app development delivers less than fat-client desktop app development delivered 20 years ago, as sad as that is. You mean, aside from not having to handle installation of your software on your users' machines? Also I'm not sure this is related to docker at all.
derefr 2y ago
Yeah, but the Open Container Initiative is supposed to be the responsible adults in the room taking the "fail fast" corporate Docker Inc stuff, and taking time to apply good engineering principles to it. It's somewhat surprising that the results of that process are looking to be nearly as fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants as Docker itself is.

belter 2y ago

Was it really so amazing? Here is half a Docker implementation, in about 100 lines of Bash... https://github.com/p8952/bocker https://github.com/p8952/bocker

samlinnfer 2y ago
The other half is the other 90%. Looking at it now, it won't even run in the latest systemd, which now refuses to boot with cgroups v1. Good luck even accessing /dev/null under cgroups v2 with systemd.
redserk 2y ago
Lines of code is irrelevant. Docker is important because: 1) it made a convenient process to build a “system” image of sorts, upload it, download it, and run it. 2) (the important bit!) Enough people adopted this process for it to become basically a standard Before Docker, it wasnt uncommon to ship some complicated apps in VMs. Packaging those was downright awful with all of the bespoke scripting needed for the various steps of distribution. And then you get a new job? Time to learn a brand new process.
- Twirrim 2y ago
  I guess Docker has been around long enough now that people have forgotten just how much of an absolute pain it used to end up being. Just how often I'd have to repeat the joke Them: "Well, it works on my machine!" Me: "Great, back up your email, we're putting your laptop in production..."
greiskul 2y ago
And like the famous hacker news comment goes, Dropbox is trivial by just using FTP, curlftpfs and SVN. Docker might have many faults, but for anybody that dealt with the problems that it aimed to solve do know in that it was revolutionary in simplifying things. And for people that disagree, please write a library like TestContainers using cobbled together bash scripts, that can download and cleanly execute and then clean up almost any common use backend dependency.

KronisLV 2y ago

> As a user experience Docker is amazing, but as technology it is hot garbage. I mean, Podman exists, as do lots of custom build tools and other useful options. Personally, I mostly just stick with vanilla Docker (and Compose/Swarm), because it's pretty coherent and everything just fits together, even if it isn't always perfect. Either way, agreed about the concepts behind the technology making things better for a lot of folks out there, myself included (haven't had prod issues with mismatched packages or inconsistent environments in years at this point, most of my personal stuff also runs on containers).

steve1977 2y ago

> it really did change the world for the better. I don’t know about that (hyperbole aside). I’ve been in IT for more than 25 years now. I can’t see that Docker container actually delivered any tangible benefits in terms of end-product reliability or velocity of development to be honest. This might not necessarily be Dockers fault though, maybe it’s just that all the potential benefits get eaten up by things like web development frameworks and Kubernetes. But at the end of the day, todays Docker-based web app development delivers less than fat-client desktop app development delivered 20 years ago, as sad as that is.

supriyo-biswas 2y ago
Being able to create a portable artifact with only the userspace components in it, and that can be shipped and run anywhere with minimal fuss is something that didn't really exist before containers.
- docandrew 2y ago
  Java?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    There were multiple ways to do it as long as you stayed inside one very narrow ecosystem; JARs from the JVM, Python's virtualenv, kind of PHP, I think Ruby had something? But containers gave you a single way to do it for any of those ecosystems. Docker lets you run a particular JVM with its JARs, and an exact version of the database behind that application, and the Ruby on Rails in front of it, and all these parts use the same format and commands.
pyrale 2y ago
> But at the end of the day, todays Docker-based web app development delivers less than fat-client desktop app development delivered 20 years ago, as sad as that is. You mean, aside from not having to handle installation of your software on your users' machines? Also I'm not sure this is related to docker at all.

derefr 2y ago

Yeah, but the Open Container Initiative is supposed to be the responsible adults in the room taking the "fail fast" corporate Docker Inc stuff, and taking time to apply good engineering principles to it. It's somewhat surprising that the results of that process are looking to be nearly as fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants as Docker itself is.