Docker, Django, Traefik, and IntercoolerJS: My go-to stack for building a SaaS • Hacker News Board

Re: Docker, Django, Traefik, and IntercoolerJS: My go-to stack for building a SaaS

#211

Post by antidocker » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 11:01 AM UTC

laingc wrote: post #136

mherrmann wrote: post #101

I don't get why people use Docker for "small SaaS apps" where "scale is not an issue". You can run everything without Docker to remove an extra level of indirection. I've been doing that exact thing with a very similar Django stack for years. Not once have I missed Docker. On the other hand, I have taken over SaaS projects where the (unnecessary) usage of Docker made it more expensive to host, decidedly more difficul…

This is a pretty common sentiment on HN and I’m sure you have your reasons for it, but to me personally it just seems bonkers. Docker is an absolutely game-changing tool for me. I can’t count the number of times it’s saved me from completely screwed up system libraries, tools installing config files in weird places, conflicting versions of this or that, or other versions of system pollution. I write a simple docker-c…

If you think Docker helps with Sandboxing, you're mistaken.

Docker is a huge security hole.

Oh, Crypto miners ....

Re: Docker, Django, Traefik, and IntercoolerJS: My go-to stack for building a SaaS

#212

Post by mattmanser » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 11:02 AM UTC

growse wrote: post #151

mherrmann wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, we're all just talking about our personal experiences. I just haven't run into the problems you describe. I use virtual environments to keep my system installation clean, and PostgreSQL / Nginx are so stable that the version I happen to have on my dev machine usually works with all my projects dating back to 2014 (but kept up-to-date).

> Sure, we're all just talking about our personal experiences. I just haven't run into the problems you describe. I use virtual environments to keep my system installation clean, and PostgreSQL / Nginx are so stable that the version I happen to have on my dev machine usually works with all my projects dating back to 2014 (but kept up-to-date). One of the most important thing docker provides is an abstraction between…

To who? Certainly not the vast majority of developers.

And if you're using Java/Node/C#/etc? Where all dependencies are included in the compiled output?

Re: Docker, Django, Traefik, and IntercoolerJS: My go-to stack for building a SaaS

#213

Post by angrais » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 11:04 AM UTC

mherrmann wrote: post #184

angrais wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give Docker a go on a project and you'll see its utility: 1. If you're doing this, then you're likely using docker incorrectly. Your container should be run from images that are automatically deployed. If there's an issue, fix local and deploy image. 2. I agree, that sounds dreadful. We use pyenv and poetry for local development and docker for deployments. That would address your issue. We of course do not use pyenv…

As I wrote at the very top of this thread, i have used Docker in a project that was forced on me, and I still use it in other client projects where I don't have a choice. I don't need to "give it a go" to learn what it's like. 1. First, the infra to automatically deploy again introduces complexity. And waiting for the Docker push to complete and then until the new container is started takes away from my time. 2. Yes,…

> I would argue my deployments are simpler than yours. Give me git and ssh and I'm good to go.

FYI: the wait time is marginal at best to deploy images and containers. My workflow is the same as yours most of the time for solo projects: SSH into server, git pull (from a "stack" branch that has docker-compose files containing DB and microservices), docker-compose up -d, and because of cached images it takes minimal time to deploy.

--

I agree that as a sole developer it can add initial complexity. As a sole developer myself on prior projects and now on personal projects, I use Docker primarily to streamline my deployment practices.

Another excellent use case of Docker not mentioned elsewhere in this thread is the simplicity of running databases locally, e.g., mongodb, postgres, etc.

Re: Docker, Django, Traefik, and IntercoolerJS: My go-to stack for building a SaaS

#214

Post by viraptor » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 11:09 AM UTC

throwaway189262 wrote: post #200

viraptor wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can run everything without Docker to remove an extra level of indirection. ... and add questions like: are all paths correct for this machine, are binary lib dependencies the same as in production, are the OS versions compatible between dev and prod, is my local runtime version compiled with same options? The great example where the indirection adds value is: every developer has the same environment and the CI…

Docker uses the host kernel. To get everything identical you need to use a VM anyways. Some languages bundle all of their dependencies so you can be relatively sure they will run the same on prod. For others (Python, Ruby) that use many system libraries, containers may add value

> To get everything identical you need to use a VM anyways.

Yes, which is where you can reach for firecracker for example. But docker gets you 95% there. If kernel makes a difference you can make the decision about the other 5%.

> Some languages bundle all of their dependencies so you can be relatively sure they will run the same on prod.

As long as they're static, vendored dependencies. Otherwise you're still likely to run into pulling something very common like openssl, zlib or libuv from the system.

Re: Docker, Django, Traefik, and IntercoolerJS: My go-to stack for building a SaaS

#215

Post by viraptor » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 11:13 AM UTC

mherrmann wrote: post #197

viraptor wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can run everything without Docker to remove an extra level of indirection. ... and add questions like: are all paths correct for this machine, are binary lib dependencies the same as in production, are the OS versions compatible between dev and prod, is my local runtime version compiled with same options? The great example where the indirection adds value is: every developer has the same environment and the CI…

If you have to answer such questions then yes, Docker is probably a good solution for them. I find that in my pretty vanilla web development, I am not faced with those questions. Most of my stuff is just Python, Django, PostgreSQL, Nginx and a few not very exciting Python dependencies. (This is in several independent projects, working as a sole developer, since 2014 and let's say ~100.000 users of my SaaS apps.)

In my experience you'll just run into them one day by accident. My last one was actually about differences in postgres drivers talking to sqlalchemy between Debian and Fedora. I agree it's likely a "pick your poison" situation, but these days I prefer defaulting to containers (and investing time upfront) for just about everything to prevent those problems rather than debug them once they happen.

Re: Docker, Django, Traefik, and IntercoolerJS: My go-to stack for building a SaaS

#216

Post by hibbelig » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 11:15 AM UTC

willemmerson wrote: post #204

mherrmann wrote: post #101

I don't get why people use Docker for "small SaaS apps" where "scale is not an issue". You can run everything without Docker to remove an extra level of indirection. I've been doing that exact thing with a very similar Django stack for years. Not once have I missed Docker. On the other hand, I have taken over SaaS projects where the (unnecessary) usage of Docker made it more expensive to host, decidedly more difficul…

At work I had to set up a server with django, postgres, SSL, rabbitmq, celery and a few other things. I did it in both ansible and docker-compose, the ansible version was 1500 lines and docker-compose version was 100 lines. A lot of the ansible stuff is dealing with users, groups, services, supervisord, virtualenvs and repositories - none of this is required in docker as containers restart themselves, users are alrea…

You can tell Ansible that a package should be removed. You just have to remember to do it. If there was ever a statement in your playbook that a package should be added then you can’t assume it will disappear automatically - you have to tell Ansible to remove it.

Re: Docker, Django, Traefik, and IntercoolerJS: My go-to stack for building a SaaS

#217

Post by strzibny » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 11:29 AM UTC

mherrmann wrote: post #101

I don't get why people use Docker for "small SaaS apps" where "scale is not an issue". You can run everything without Docker to remove an extra level of indirection. I've been doing that exact thing with a very similar Django stack for years. Not once have I missed Docker. On the other hand, I have taken over SaaS projects where the (unnecessary) usage of Docker made it more expensive to host, decidedly more difficul…

Yep. I agree. Docker has its place, but nothing wrong with keeping everything one layer short. It's how I run my side-projects. Just a small Bash setup.sh script and you are good to go. Docker solves the annoyance of system dependencies, but you still have to deal with it in your Docker build.

As I always say, know what you are doing + know to debug everything. If somebody is more comfortable with Docker, I think no problem there either :). Sometimes it solves a real pain, sometimes don't (having an Elixir release or Java jar makes me not to really use containers).

If you are on Docker, I recommend looking into Podman (maybe even together with runc -> today trending on HN). Don't run your containers under root and run your app inside the container under a specific user as well.

Shameless plug: I am now writing a book on application deployment and will show both approaches, Docker and Docker-less[0].

[0] https://deploymentfromscratch.com/

Re: Docker, Django, Traefik, and IntercoolerJS: My go-to stack for building a SaaS

#218

Post by matsemann » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 11:35 AM UTC

mherrmann wrote: post #101

I don't get why people use Docker for "small SaaS apps" where "scale is not an issue". You can run everything without Docker to remove an extra level of indirection. I've been doing that exact thing with a very similar Django stack for years. Not once have I missed Docker. On the other hand, I have taken over SaaS projects where the (unnecessary) usage of Docker made it more expensive to host, decidedly more difficul…

Disagree. Not using docker I have to learn about the specifics of how the hosting company runs my software. With docker it's 30 lines I can copy from an earlier project and I have full control.

Re: Docker, Django, Traefik, and IntercoolerJS: My go-to stack for building a SaaS

#219

Post by ldng » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 11:40 AM UTC

mherrmann wrote: post #101

I don't get why people use Docker for "small SaaS apps" where "scale is not an issue". You can run everything without Docker to remove an extra level of indirection. I've been doing that exact thing with a very similar Django stack for years. Not once have I missed Docker. On the other hand, I have taken over SaaS projects where the (unnecessary) usage of Docker made it more expensive to host, decidedly more difficul…

Well, maybe you are careful and meticulous and are the only person to deploy. But when you are working in a team where anybody can deploy, maybe not everybody as meticulous as you. Using Docker makes it easy for anyone to rollback anything (yeah, yeah, you know those kind of issues that should not happen but it still do ...), and that's a game changer.

Re: Docker, Django, Traefik, and IntercoolerJS: My go-to stack for building a SaaS

#220

Post by matsemann » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 11:40 AM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #158

fmakunbound wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s too fucking hard to setup python with all its pyenv, anaconda, poetry, pip requirements.txt and what-not, that’s the best use case for Docker here. Get it to work once and forget about it.

Few hours of annoyance per developer in the beginning vs. a few minutes every time you run tests or when you debug. Also add in the overhead of configuring a debugging system where you work in an ide and debug code running in a docker image. Doable (though many of my fellow Devs have just given up) but also takes time, probably more than to run pip and get psycopg2 installed on Macs. Also the majority of engineers pr…

If you think it's okay to spend a few hours setting stuff up per developer, why can't you just invest an hour in learning how to debug with docker?