There is a good reason that tutorials treat it that way: it should be treated that way, IMO.<p>I don't agree that your dev environment should perfectly match whatever environment you're deploying to. It is good to do some things: same version of Python, same DB and same version, hopefully same OS, but that is rarely something you always have control over. You do, so sure, do the best you can here.<p>Rather, I would suggest you configure your development environment to best facilitate development, especially for learning. On some apps maybe you will need to have some kind of parity environment (mostly this is DB level stuff, then specific Python version, then OS version, in my experience problems rarely if ever come up that aren't in these categories) but it is rare, and you definitely do not need this for learning.<p>The easiest thing and best thing for learning may be to get a cheap VM and set up your own environment. If you do want to learn a tool like Docker, sure - but I don't suggest developing in Docker. It is more of a pain than it is worth.