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I want to challenge this assumption that “the distro way is the good way” and anything else that people are doing is the “wrong” way. I want to challenge it, b

I want to challenge this assumption that “the distro way is the good way” and anything else that people are doing is the “wrong” way. I want to challenge it, because I’m beginning to be of the opinion that the “distro way” isn’t actually entirely suitable for a lot of software _anymore_. The fact that running something via docker is easier for people than the distro way indicates that there are significant UX/usability issues that aren’t being addressed. Docker as a mechanism to ship stuff for users does suck, and it’s a workaround for sure, but I’m not convinced that all those developers are “doing things wrong”.

wakawaka28 2y ago
>The fact that running something via docker is easier for people than the distro way indicates that there are significant UX/usability issues that aren’t being addressed. It's a lack of maintenance that isn't getting addressed. Either some set of dependencies isn't being updated, or the consumers of those dependencies aren't being updated to match changes in those dependencies. In some cases there is no actual work to do, and the container user is just too lazy to test anything newer. Why try to update when you can run the old stuff forever, ignoring even the slow upgrades that come with your Linux distro every few years? Some people would insist that running old stuff forever in a container is not "doing things wrong" because it works. But most people need to update for security reasons, and to get new features. It would be better to update gradually, and I think containers discourage gradual improvements as they are used in most circumstances. Of course you can use the technology to speed up the work of testing many different configurations as well, so it's not all bad. I fear there are far more lazy developers out there than industrious ones however.

wakawaka28 2y ago

>The fact that running something via docker is easier for people than the distro way indicates that there are significant UX/usability issues that aren’t being addressed. It's a lack of maintenance that isn't getting addressed. Either some set of dependencies isn't being updated, or the consumers of those dependencies aren't being updated to match changes in those dependencies. In some cases there is no actual work to do, and the container user is just too lazy to test anything newer. Why try to update when you can run the old stuff forever, ignoring even the slow upgrades that come with your Linux distro every few years? Some people would insist that running old stuff forever in a container is not "doing things wrong" because it works. But most people need to update for security reasons, and to get new features. It would be better to update gradually, and I think containers discourage gradual improvements as they are used in most circumstances. Of course you can use the technology to speed up the work of testing many different configurations as well, so it's not all bad. I fear there are far more lazy developers out there than industrious ones however.