Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Docker as an Integrated Development Environment (2019)

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 93 posts

Re: Docker as an Integrated Development Environment (2019)

#71

Post by throwaway894345 »

krisgenre wrote: post #16

Does anyone use docker for full-fledged development on OSX? I am a Linux user and tried setting up a dev environment for my colleagues on OSX but file system I/O was extremely slow and completely unusable.

We ran into this as well. The I/O would cripple the system. It seems like if you have a compiled language in which the sources are compiled into a single binary that runs on your Docker VM, things are not so bad, but in an interpreted language with the sources on the host’s disk and the interpreter running on the guest, the VM needs to reach across that host/guest VM boundary all the time. We also tried all the tricks to speed it up, but we ultimately gave up and just used native MacOS processes.

Re: Docker as an Integrated Development Environment (2019)

#72

Post by jen20 »

mintyc wrote: post #59
capableweb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mmmm, no. Nix is not a SaaS that builds your snapshots that you have to pay for (or that "they need to monotize", what's wrong with people?), it's a whole ecosystem ranging from a full OS (NixOS) down to a package manager (Nix Package Manager) and programming language (just "Nix). Not sure what needs clarification here, it's pretty up-front about it's mission and features already. > Your snapshots and abilities to ro…

I'm really impressed with it and am ONLY seeking clarity. I'll be extremely happy if I can use it standalone. Copyright, licensing are all I'm looking at. e.g. Something like AGPL is considered copyleft and not compatible with 'open source' ethos. Still 'free' but the additional non-compete cloud service clause is both a sensible move, but something I'd just like to understand. Your statement of 'what's wrong with pe…

> e.g. Something like AGPL is considered copyleft and not compatible with 'open source' ethos. Still 'free'

I’ve had to read this several times and still don’t understand what you’re talking about. AGPL is a Free Software license. All Free Software licenses (to my knowledge) provide source access. AGPL is also OSI-approved, so it is also an open source license.

It’s unclear what point you’re trying to make?

Re: Docker as an Integrated Development Environment (2019)

#73

Post by adamcstephens »

Shoue wrote: post #66
adamcstephens wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What never been clear to me, is how does one pin a specific version in nix? For example, say I want python 3.9.2 exactly?

You need to find the Nixpkgs GitHub commit with that specific version – in some cases it won't necessarily be in the binary cache so you have to compile it yourself because otherwise they'd have an insane amount more binaries to host. You can use Cachix to get your own binary cache (or alternatively just straight up host your own), and check out Niv if you want to make it easier to manage pinned Nixpkgs.

Niv looks interesting, I’ll have to check it out.

Trawling through git commits, hosting my own binary cache, these are all awful stories. Package versions are the normal pattern, and this lack of support for them in Nix has turned me off the two times I’ve explored using it. I kinda get why they aren’t supported, but it is a huge dissonance from the rest of the software world.

Re: Docker as an Integrated Development Environment (2019)

#75

Post by sdfhbdf »

adriancr wrote: post #61
sdfhbdf wrote: post #44

Hmm i don’t think you can compare IntelliJ which is a fully featured IDE with refractor functionalities, full text search, debugger and so on to a vim setup with plugins in docker container, just because they both edit text. This what the author did at the end of the write up. It’s like comparing jQuery to NodeJS, yeah they both generally are for JavaScript but serve a different purpose.

vim, gdb, grep, cscope, ... Just because you are not familiar with his setup doesn't mean it's not at feature parity and more. Hell, he might even be running intellij in docker if he wishes. Saying this as I have a similar setup with emacs.

For me what you just listed are a couple of tools that fit a specific workflow - seems like C or C++ development.

IDE is an Integrated Development Environment. So I think strapping a few tools together with no real influence over one another doesn't seem to constitute an IDE.

Unless you wanna argue that putting these tools into a Docker image makes that container an IDE, then I don't know, maybe? Whatever floats your boat in the end.

Using a JetBrains product you pretty much just pay for the support and "works out of the box" features. You can roll your own LSP, AST Analyzers, shell scripts that bundle it all together and call it an IDE, but I would still be on the side saying it's just a bunch of tools and they're not "integrated"

Re: Docker as an Integrated Development Environment (2019)

#76

Post by emptysongglass »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #69
capableweb wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such is the life of a professional. If you want to reach the areas where you can really improve your productivity, you're gonna have to take weeks or even months to learn something from the bottom up. There is no way around it, and it's the same in many industries. There is no "30 minutes to get more productive than anyone else" in reality, only hard work, understanding and application of your knowledge in the real w…

I’ve been working with Nix for years and I still find it to be disappointing. I don’t like Docker and I really love the Nix concept, but the execution seems poor. As an example, I spent half of a Saturday unsuccessfully working with people on the Nix Discord to get VS Code configured with some Rust plugins on MacOS. Similarly, if you need to write your own package, it might be easy or it might be a bottomless rabbit…

Can you link the Nix Discord?

Re: Docker as an Integrated Development Environment (2019)

#77

Post by emptysongglass »

speedgoose wrote: post #26
krisgenre wrote: post #16

Does anyone use docker for full-fledged development on OSX? I am a Linux user and tried setting up a dev environment for my colleagues on OSX but file system I/O was extremely slow and completely unusable.

Yes I do. I am trying to develop on OSX since a few days, using Docker. But between the low amount of ram on the laptop and the bad IOs performances I decided to give another try to Github Codespaces and I'm very pleasantly surprised. It feels fast enough and I can switch from computer without thinking about it.

My new company's restrictive software whitelists are making Codespaces a very attractive proposition but lead times for invites have been in the months for some people.

Re: Docker as an Integrated Development Environment (2019)

#78

Post by stult »

kamac wrote: post #52
sdfhbdf wrote: post #44

Hmm i don’t think you can compare IntelliJ which is a fully featured IDE with refractor functionalities, full text search, debugger and so on to a vim setup with plugins in docker container, just because they both edit text. This what the author did at the end of the write up. It’s like comparing jQuery to NodeJS, yeah they both generally are for JavaScript but serve a different purpose.

I agree, the title of the article is a bit misleading. In general, you’d still need an IDE installed on the host machine, which can then connect to a runtime on the container. With VS Code and remote containers, it’s quite easy. Alternatively, maybe it’d be possible to have the container expose an IDE over http (possibly vscode through the browser?).

VNC/RDP via Guacamole or some other VDI solution can provide this with relatively little effort. But it sort of defeats the point. Using your local IDE to connect to a container allows for a snappier, more responsive development experience than a VDI can provide. Plus remote containers is basically just ssh. So a lot less bandwidth and general overhead than a full on VDI solution, and you don't need to have a full VNC server set up on your containers.

Re: Docker as an Integrated Development Environment (2019)

#79

Post by amarant »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #69
capableweb wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such is the life of a professional. If you want to reach the areas where you can really improve your productivity, you're gonna have to take weeks or even months to learn something from the bottom up. There is no way around it, and it's the same in many industries. There is no "30 minutes to get more productive than anyone else" in reality, only hard work, understanding and application of your knowledge in the real w…

I’ve been working with Nix for years and I still find it to be disappointing. I don’t like Docker and I really love the Nix concept, but the execution seems poor. As an example, I spent half of a Saturday unsuccessfully working with people on the Nix Discord to get VS Code configured with some Rust plugins on MacOS. Similarly, if you need to write your own package, it might be easy or it might be a bottomless rabbit…

I agree actually, you describe the issues I've had with nix quite head on. I've not ran into such issues every single time i try it, but I have hit upon a good deal of issues of the kind you describe. Nix is by no means perfect, and if I was smarter I'd try to remake it with a stronger type system, but the basic premise is useful enough on it's own to warrant usage IMO

Re: Docker as an Integrated Development Environment (2019)

#80

Post by adriancr »

sdfhbdf wrote: post #75
adriancr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

vim, gdb, grep, cscope, ... Just because you are not familiar with his setup doesn't mean it's not at feature parity and more. Hell, he might even be running intellij in docker if he wishes. Saying this as I have a similar setup with emacs.

For me what you just listed are a couple of tools that fit a specific workflow - seems like C or C++ development. IDE is an Integrated Development Environment. So I think strapping a few tools together with no real influence over one another doesn't seem to constitute an IDE. Unless you wanna argue that putting these tools into a Docker image makes that container an IDE, then I don't know, maybe? Whatever floats your…

I am suggesting - vim + plugins or emacs + libraries that use those tools. All integrated as you say.

Your IDE also uses gdb or similar for debugging, common compilers like llvm for compilation / code indexing, common analyzers.

You will have references, definitions, code search, debug, completion, etc all within the editor (in my case emacs)

It all works great and much faster then out-of-the-box IDEs, works within terminal too... no x11 needed.

That still requires some fiddling initially to get it working but once you have your setup its a matter of just pushing it to docker.

Now... the drawback is the time spent to get it, but what i'm saying is don't be dismissive, try and imagine what's possible with old tools.

New tools are also nice in that they avoid that setup work, you can push these too in the docker container and use them the same way.

Post reply on HN