| This is actually one case I've been thinking of using docker for, that is, having a development image for your project's build environment to provide a consistent base that has all the development libraries installed and doesn't require any fussing around with library versions. I'm sure with certain languages/runtimes you can leverage the package/dependency manager to serve the same purpose, but I imagine having a docker image for this would mean everyone's using the same base OS with the same installed library versions. This way anyone who wants to contribute to your OSS project can clone the repo, run a simple command to initialize the dev environment, and start hacking right away. As an aside, I completely agree with your sentiment about trying to learn about the actual tech rather than just being sold on some sales pitch targeted towards less tech-savvy crowds. The best "solution" I've found for this problem myself is to educate myself as much as I can on the fundamentals of the problem space and try to reason about that decision myself. For example, I haven't done much of a deep dive into docker yet but have spent a lot of time trying to learn as much as I can about the fundamentals/primitives provided by operating systems and kernels. I feel this way I can always reference back to basics and make a better decision of whether something is gimick-y or not. Lately I've been so frustrated with people selling these "solutions" yet not having any understanding of the how things work that I've spent the last 3 years trying to learn as much as I can about infrastructure primitives (TCP/IP + general networking theory, database theory + database engines, and OS/kernel internals). It takes a lot of time but I definitely think it's worth it since it's a lot harder to be "fooled" when you actually understand things from the bottom up, for some definition of "bottom". It also helps that I work in this space professionally, so the investment in learning these things literally pays off. Anyway, that's the end of my rant : ) |