Hi, I'm the author. Thanks for taking a look. This is basically a tool to help manage a "Dockerfile" repo (along the lines of <a href="https://github.com/jessfraz/dockerfiles" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/jessfraz/dockerfiles</a>), where you build any tools you want into images that you control. This can be really useful for personal use or within a company.<p>Why build tools into Docker images? Love it or hate it, there are many senses in which Docker is currently the best medium that we have for distributing and running dev tools. Here's an article making that argument: <a href="https://jonathan.bergknoff.com/journal/run-more-stuff-in-docker/" rel="nofollow">https://jonathan.bergknoff.com/journal/run-more-stuff-in-doc...</a>.
We've made all this so complicated. Instead of the beautiful simplicity based on UNIX philosophy (arguably), modern devops feels like a mishmash of ideas plopped together, tied with a bunch of yaml tape and god forbid if you ever want to look inside the stack of mess. Containerization is a great idea but flawed in its interface.<p>I like what Jim Keller (chip architect) says about complexity - that we need to throw away everything and start from scratch to which the interviewer asks, how often? Jim responds that currently chip architectures are re-done every 10 years but it should be more like every 5 years[1].<p>Just like any evolutionary process, there comes a point of diminishing returns because mistakes made cannot be corrected due to many other things that get piled up on <i>top</i> of it. So, it is difficult to track back. What happens is more shit gets piled up on top just to patch up old mistakes. Like our laryngeal nerve that loops around from the brain, all the way to the cervical area and goes back to the voicebox[2]. It is even more evident in a Giraffe. A good architect wouldn't design anatomy like this. The reason why it is the way it is, is because evolution has no hindsight and marginal cost of <i>undoing</i> the nerve is higher than just slightly increasing the length of the nerve. This is what we do in software. A good architect wouldn't design software like this. Sorry for the diversion, but I just feel so much pain with Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform and a whole load of AWS complexity. Holyshit.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CSeY10zbqo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CSeY10zbqo</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve#/media/File:Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve.svg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve#/med...</a>
I am growing my anxiety as more layers to the Docker onion grow faster than I can stay current. In the past 2 years my company adopted kubernetes to manage our already confusing Docker infrastructure design, and then they added Rancher to it because no one was making sense of kubernetes.<p>Meanwhile we're shipping on five year old containers that everyone is afraid to update and no one remembers how to build them. We're building a skyscraper on a floating pier and trying to reach the moon before the tide changes.<p>I know this is the way, but I am having a hard time because it just doesn't make sense. This doesn't feel like process. It feels like compounding of reactions. Is it just me? My company? Or is this a general feeling?
See also Nix, which can declaratively generate Dockerfiles (example on home page) :-)<p><a href="https://nixos.org" rel="nofollow">https://nixos.org</a>
From the article:<p>> Docker is an excellent means of distributing those sorts of tools.<p>No, package managers are excellent means of distributing and managing installed tools. Docker is an excellent way to package the tools, but it's distribution and management are terrible. There isn't even a command to simply show which containers are considered "outdated" without having to repull all your images, which can take 10+ minutes on 30 images.
I guess we are fixing our lack of compatibility story by encasing our tools in fixed environments. Then write new tooling when this is no longer usable.<p>That seems like a short term view of things.