4 ms·

Feedback and constructive criticism welcome

gtaylor 12y ago
There's a lot of helpful information in the article, much of which I didn't know about. I'm glad that you took the time to link to specific issues, that's very helpful. However, the article is so incredibly negative in tone, and so thoroughly dismissive of Docker that I have a hard time taking it to heart. Docker is not a silver bullet, and it is definitely being over-hyped right now. But it does have some great usage cases, and it has got a lot of people working together on re-thinking how we build and deploy applications. I think you'd be more likely to bring about positive change by adjusting tone and trying to point out some usage cases where Docker excels. I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm a lot more likely to take someone to heart who shows some balance while criticizing. Unless you just wanted to get lots of page views with an hyper-critical (though well-researched) article. If that is the case, carry on and disregard this.
- sleepycal 12y ago
  Thanks for the reply, it actually made me smile. Typically my articles are a representation of the emotions that the subject makes me feel, in this case 6 months of rage inducing frustration. I do try and balance out my criticisms with positive thinking, which can be seen in a recent review I did of swampdragon [1]. However you're quite right to point out that this article fails to represent the positive impact of the Docker ecosystem, something which several other people have also commented. I'm going to amend the article to reflect this. [1]: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/django-users/5xIYUrEFfUs/KAIXOJ1gQ50J https://groups.google.com/d/msg/django-users/5xIYUrEFfUs/KAI...
tdicola 12y ago
Ok, my honest takeaway is that you have too negative an attitude. I'm not a docker cheerleader, and there are likely some good points and issues raised but I couldn't help thinking this came across as just being mad at the world for liking docker.
- sleepycal 12y ago
  Thank you for your honesty, you are right to point this out and I'll be editing accordingly (see above comment)
rachbelaid 12y ago
Great post with some very useful insights, thanks also for the links to the issues. I do like the approach of the coreos team of working collaboratively on a spec to include every platform. https://github.com/appc/spec https://github.com/appc/spec
- sleepycal 12y ago
  Thank you! I've heard good things about Core OS, looking forward to trying it in the lab.
omni 12y ago
> This did not solve the problem of slow speeds, but the only alternative was to use our own Docker Registry, which is ridiculously complex. I feel like if you're going to criticize running your own registry you really need to devote more time to it. You can get an S3-backed, distributed private registry running in about 5 minutes using their provided image. It's really, really easy.
- sleepycal 12y ago
  Thank you for the feedback. Although the README looks slightly easier than previous, it still makes for difficult reading, and I'd argue that they need to document this better. Unless you have a link to somewhere this has already been done? (a quick 5 minute look on Google didn't give any definitive answer)
  - omni 12y ago
    I don't have a link to any improved docs,no. I did set up a private registry at my company though and I remember it being quite painless. We just run the stock image, pass our credentials to it via environment variables, and it Just Works™. I think the README is verbose because there are a lot of options when it comes to running the thing. If you know off the bat that S3 is what you want, though, I think you can read it in a pretty targeted fashion.
    - Gigablah 12y ago
      Getting the private registry to work with TLS is really painful though: https://github.com/docker/docker-registry/issues/541 https://github.com/docker/docker-registry/issues/541
      - jamshid 12y ago
        True, I finally broke down and just added "--insecure-registry" (it's just a cert verification issue, the connection is secure regardless). Will try again later, sounds like they're planning major registry changes anyway. Anyway, while the S3 backed private registry is kinda slow, it works and it's literally a single docker run. I'm not sure how it could be simpler. https://github.com/docker/docker-registry/blob/master/ADVANCED.md#non-amazon-s3-compliant-object-stores-eg-ceph-and-riak-cs https://github.com/docker/docker-registry/blob/master/ADVANC...

There's a lot of helpful information in the article, much of which I didn't know about. I'm glad that you took the time to link to specific issues, that's very helpful. However, the article is so incredibly negative in tone, and so thoroughly dismissive of Docker that I have a hard time taking it to heart. Docker is not a silver bullet, and it is definitely being over-hyped right now. But it does have some great usage cases, and it has got a lot of people working together on re-thinking how we build and deploy applications. I think you'd be more likely to bring about positive change by adjusting tone and trying to point out some usage cases where Docker excels. I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm a lot more likely to take someone to heart who shows some balance while criticizing. Unless you just wanted to get lots of page views with an hyper-critical (though well-researched) article. If that is the case, carry on and disregard this.

sleepycal 12y ago
Thanks for the reply, it actually made me smile. Typically my articles are a representation of the emotions that the subject makes me feel, in this case 6 months of rage inducing frustration. I do try and balance out my criticisms with positive thinking, which can be seen in a recent review I did of swampdragon [1]. However you're quite right to point out that this article fails to represent the positive impact of the Docker ecosystem, something which several other people have also commented. I'm going to amend the article to reflect this. [1]: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/django-users/5xIYUrEFfUs/KAIXOJ1gQ50J https://groups.google.com/d/msg/django-users/5xIYUrEFfUs/KAI...

tdicola 12y ago

Ok, my honest takeaway is that you have too negative an attitude. I'm not a docker cheerleader, and there are likely some good points and issues raised but I couldn't help thinking this came across as just being mad at the world for liking docker.

sleepycal 12y ago
Thank you for your honesty, you are right to point this out and I'll be editing accordingly (see above comment)

rachbelaid 12y ago

Great post with some very useful insights, thanks also for the links to the issues. I do like the approach of the coreos team of working collaboratively on a spec to include every platform. https://github.com/appc/spec https://github.com/appc/spec

sleepycal 12y ago
Thank you! I've heard good things about Core OS, looking forward to trying it in the lab.

omni 12y ago

> This did not solve the problem of slow speeds, but the only alternative was to use our own Docker Registry, which is ridiculously complex. I feel like if you're going to criticize running your own registry you really need to devote more time to it. You can get an S3-backed, distributed private registry running in about 5 minutes using their provided image. It's really, really easy.

sleepycal 12y ago
Thank you for the feedback. Although the README looks slightly easier than previous, it still makes for difficult reading, and I'd argue that they need to document this better. Unless you have a link to somewhere this has already been done? (a quick 5 minute look on Google didn't give any definitive answer)
- omni 12y ago
  I don't have a link to any improved docs,no. I did set up a private registry at my company though and I remember it being quite painless. We just run the stock image, pass our credentials to it via environment variables, and it Just Works™. I think the README is verbose because there are a lot of options when it comes to running the thing. If you know off the bat that S3 is what you want, though, I think you can read it in a pretty targeted fashion.
  - Gigablah 12y ago
    Getting the private registry to work with TLS is really painful though: https://github.com/docker/docker-registry/issues/541 https://github.com/docker/docker-registry/issues/541
    - jamshid 12y ago
      True, I finally broke down and just added "--insecure-registry" (it's just a cert verification issue, the connection is secure regardless). Will try again later, sounds like they're planning major registry changes anyway. Anyway, while the S3 backed private registry is kinda slow, it works and it's literally a single docker run. I'm not sure how it could be simpler. https://github.com/docker/docker-registry/blob/master/ADVANCED.md#non-amazon-s3-compliant-object-stores-eg-ceph-and-riak-cs https://github.com/docker/docker-registry/blob/master/ADVANC...