Using Vagrant, we can still: * Write software that depends on POSIX-only applications, such as Redis and, yes, Docker * Share development environments-that-look-like-production with other developers, thus avoiding "works on my machine" bugs.
You need very little Linux knowledge to do this. Just apt-get, a text editor and the occasional HOWTO/blog post gets you very far.
Additionally, with Docker-on-Vagrant, we can easily: * Simulate a multi-server environment locally without hogging resources * Do effective versioning on dev environment configuration before sharing stuff with colleagues * As a result, learn Linux administration with easy rollbacks after fuckups.
All this without an on-team Linux guru.
Of course, once you go live, you'll need a decent sysadmin/devop type to un-suck the installations. And backport that to the dev setups. Or, just go to some PaaS and have the security/efficiency part done for you. But that's not my point: my point is that even without running your own hardcore-linux-guru-devopsed production environment, and without anything more than basic Linux skills, you can get a lot of value from Vagrant+Docker.
And it is growing more and more common that most developers in larger organizations don't even know Vagrant is being used under the covers because it is being masked by higher level scripts ("click button to start dev environment"). Under NDA I can't say any names here, but it is more common than you think.
Isn't there a way to do this super slimmed down and light weight?
Quoting jaytaylor's comment [1] from below:
> You may be interested in checking out ShipBuilder - it
> is an open-source Heroku-clone PaaS.
>
> ShipBuilder is written in Go, and uses Git, LXC and
> HAProxy to deliver a complete solution for
> an application platform-as-a-service.
>
> http://shipbuilder.io [2]
>
> https://github.com/sendhub/shipbuilder [3]
Edit: It was in the book Clean Code.
Docker-on-linux-on-vagrant is a nice compromise though.
Best machine I've ever had
Combining these technologies to have the Docker builds released in ready to go AMIs/VBox/VMWare images for easy deployment is on my dream list. Does anyone want to help?
Docker source itself ships with a Vagrantfile so that you can get an example development environment up and running should you be running on an old Linux kernel that doesn't sport Docker's current runtime requirements. Just 'git clone [email protected]:dotcloud/docker.git docker && cd docker && vagrant up'.
There is the problem right there.
Make it not rare, hire people who work on Linux and prefer it, this is a way for any company to ensure a good hire and not having to find new interview questions or other tricks to weed out the copy-pasters.
If you hire only people proficient with Linux, you won't create a sudden thirst for developers to grok Linux. Instead you'll have just limited your talent pool to the subset of developers who enjoy tinkering with OSes. If that's your goal, then great - but most companies are looking for people who can develop well, regardless of their OS preferences.
I used OSX a few times with the same software I used with Linux. Same browser, same IDE, etc.
I've used a mac since 10.4 as my main workstation system and I still get people asking me what they should use for a video editor. I spend most of my time in Emacs, or the Terminal ssh'd into something, or looking at docs in Dash, or in chrome looking at webpages.
I couldn't edit an image to save my life, I leave that to professionals.
So emacs ey, why Mac then? Why not a Linux flavor?
(1) I want the computer to work for me, not the other way. I used to like to hack everything on my computer, but after years and years of doing that, I've lost my patience. I want things to just work and not break after every damn update. I want to be able to do my real job and use the computer as just a tool.
(2) It looks ugly, the fonts are really bad, nobody cares about UX when designing apps, etc. You can say that I can change that, but as I've said: I want the damn thing to just work out of the box. I understand that maybe you don't care about that, but that's why it's me who's using a Mac. Don't get me wrong, it's nothing wrong in using Linux, it's just not for me anymore.
I'm still using the command line more than the GUI, though. But that is a choice. It combines the best parts of both worlds.
I feel like we need some sort of standard nomenclature or diagrams for explaining different pieces of complex software systems. Reading through pages and pages of documentation to make decisions about what to use is too time-consuming.
Anybody have thoughts on this?
It is unfortunate that so many people compare Vagrant and Docker. While there is overlap, Docker is mostly not viable as a dev environment tool alone, so it isn't a fair comparison. The main reason is because you have to be using Linux (and a recent Linux) as your main dev system, and in practice this is very rare. Move beyond indie developers and for all intents and purposes Linux desktops are non-existent (Vagrant is in use by companies like BBC, Expedia, Intuit, etc. and I can tell you most devs don't know how to use Linux let alone run it as their primary dev platform).
BUT, I agree that putting your dev environment in a Docker container is absolutely _amazing_, and there is a KILLER Vagrant/Docker combo.
The killer combo is actually running Vagrant to spin up Docker-ready VMs, then using Docker inside that to develop. This lets people use Docker on Windows, Mac, and Linux. You get the fast iteration time because all your state is actually in a container, so you just docker kill and run as usual.
In fact, an upcoming version of Vagrant is adding Docker as a provisioner, so you can `docker pull` containers down as part of `vagrant up`.
And I published Packer[1] templates to build Docker-ready VirtualBox/VMware/AWS images that are Vagrant-ready: https://github.com/mitchellh/packer-ubuntu-12.04-docker
[1]: www.packer.io