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Basically Everyone Should Be Avoiding Docker

lukesmith.xyz

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Re: Basically Everyone Should Be Avoiding Docker

#41

Post by neuronexmachina »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #24

That... was not a very convincing article! It came across as a frustrated op-ed where the author intentionally focused on the negatives rather than steel manning their own argument. Any potential positives were handwaved as out-of-scope. VSCode devcontainers are awesome. They are my default way of working on any new project. Being able to blow away a container and start with a fresh, reproducible setup - at any time…

It kind of seemed like this might have been the first time the author tried doing anything with Docker containers. And yeah... if you're trying to work with and modify a Docker container the same way you'd work with a VM, you're going to have a bad time.

Re: Basically Everyone Should Be Avoiding Docker

#42

Post by mootoday »

Wasm Components, deployed on wasmCloud.

IMHO, that's the way to go. Instead of hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes, we're talking kilobytes, sometimes megabytes for each unit of compute.

Actually sandboxed environments per component.

Add/remove permissions of who can execute what at runtime.

But then again, I'm biased towards modern tech and while it often turns out I was right on the money, it's not always the case.

Do your own research and such, but FYI about wasmCloud.

Re: Basically Everyone Should Be Avoiding Docker

#43

Post by udev4096 »

Docker gives me at least some form of isolation. Yes, I know container escapes are possible but I run gvisor on top of it which is a strong sandbox. If I was just running as a systemd service as a user, all the attacker needs is a linux LPE, which is in abundance

Re: Basically Everyone Should Be Avoiding Docker

#44

Post by mike_d »

cmdrk wrote: post #38

Containerization is amazingly great for scientific computing. I don’t ever want to go back to doing the make && make install dance and praying I’ve got my dependency ducks in a row.

The only real feature of Docker is the ability to keep unmaintained software running as the world around it moves forward. Academics could do the same thing by just distributing read only VMs as well.

Re: Basically Everyone Should Be Avoiding Docker

#45

Post by rkagerer »

MattGaiser wrote: post #7

> It’s no easier to setup a Docker file than a installation shell script, even one that runs on multiple platforms. I would be very curious to see this done in a robust way. Bash vs PowerShell. All the various installation managers on those OS systems. Permissions as the programs will be going on the OS itself. When I tried this, granted is a very junior developer, I did not succeed.

Did it for decades before Docker was a thing. Even for projects with lots of complex dependencies, some tied into the OS. Basically you just need a well documented, thorough and up to date set of steps for setting up the environment.

This is something you should still have even if using Docker.

I don't knock Docker for making that easy and "tied up with a bow and ribbon" for its users (that's great!), but do agree there are times when you really don't need the extra abstraction layer.

Re: Basically Everyone Should Be Avoiding Docker

#46

Post by udev4096 »

MadnessASAP wrote: post #19
slashdave wrote: post #13

Should this be titled "Basically everyone who doesn't know how to use Docker should be avoiding Docker"?

Only people who dont know how to use Linux use Docker because Docker makes Linux easy. This is bad because I don't know how to use Docker. The Author

I mean most people still see it as a blackbox. The magic is in namespaces, cgroups, etc. I would recommend reading this series: https://iximiuz.com/en/posts/container-learning-path/

Re: Basically Everyone Should Be Avoiding Docker

#47

Post by neuronexmachina »

edfletcher_t137 wrote: post #9
adastra22 wrote: post #3

This has rather strong “old man yelling at clouds” vibes. OP: Learn docker and it stops being an “impenetrable wall.” Face it, you don’t want to use docker (or podman) because you are set in your ways. That’s fine, but it is not an argument for anyone else.

OP's YT is full-on "old man yelling at clouds" https://www.youtube.com/c/lukesmithxyz

Almost literally so with his "Boomer Rants in Woods" series.

Re: Basically Everyone Should Be Avoiding Docker

#48

Post by udev4096 »

arjie wrote: post #30

For the most part people decide to create Docker containers like they're deploying everything to heavy prod so they chop the image down super narrow. Just solve for your own use-case. I run my blog and other things on a homeserver with a Cloudflare reverse proxy in front of it and I don't use `docker` strictly but I do use systemd quadlets and podman and it's the same thing. If you're upset with your tooling in your…

I am not entirely sure but afaik overlayfs is only if you use docker volumes and not bind mounts

Re: Basically Everyone Should Be Avoiding Docker

#49

Post by Supermancho »

ranger207 wrote: post #27

> There are basically only two “real” reasons to use Docker or containerization more generally: > 1. People who do not know how to use Unix-based operating systems or specifically GNU/Linux. > 2. People who are deploying a program for a corporation at a massive enterprise scale, don’t care about customizability and need some kind of guarantor of homogeneity. Unix is only around because of its use at massive enterpris…

> Very few people were using Unix instead of DOS (or Mac OS or Windows or whatever) for their home PCs; it only got popular and people learned how to use it and later Linux because of its use in business

I would say this part is correct.

Your first statement is incorrect, as phrased, but I understand what you meant. Granted, you would have to wipe out all cloud providers using flavors of unix, most phones and macs to reduce the footprint. That being said, it's unpopular as a desktop OS. Phones and Macs hide it so well that most people are unaware of the underlying OS.

My first Linux machine was on my work desk in 1998, while we were running racks of UltraSPARCs in production.

I use docker extensively for local development in all my projects at home and at work. This guy is wrong about multiple things, eg "Well, if you’re expecting Docker to have a file-system easily accessible, you’re wrong"

I can access my docker OS from: docker exec -it containername bash (allowing that it has bash).

If the container OS has autocomplete and other GNU tools and features, you can get all the functionality. If you want to build that image or even upgrade the image you have (most containers have access to package management), you have a new image you can use the way you like...which might include running more than one service on the same container. Just like using a script on another unix machine, except without having to set up the physical networking or paying a host.

It's very UNIX-y to provide single entry points to services and run them in relative isolation (changes to one container do not affect the others) by default.

Re: Basically Everyone Should Be Avoiding Docker

#50

Post by routelastresort »

Containerization is so widespread... from almost every single programming book and beginner class to the foundation for most of the Internet running today. As a technology, it's very easy to teach. I suggest keeping an open mind with relevant and ubiquitous technology and at least coming up with a compelling alternative for any of the use wildly popular use cases that have made it commodity tech at this point.

Lack of real moderation and reddit tier opinions like this are why I no longer visit this site on a daily or even regular basis.

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