[funkydata]

I've decided to play it simple albeit "old school" (because Docker seemed to add its own set of headaches - also not every project needs to do micro services or work with clusters or scale):

- Vagrant (so you don't have to worry about runtime executables) with the stack matching that of the production server (you can even ask ops to provide you with the provisioning script and remove the parts that you don't need - otherwise learning to provision your dev. VMs won't hurt you)

- Virtualenv

- pip

Then simply point your IDE (I only use Vim under duress) to the remote Python interpreter (the one you installed in the Vagrant VM).

It does add processing overhead but it worked with my 2010 MacBook Pro until it died and still works (only ten times faster) with the 2016 model. Your only limitation would be the RAM (I would recommend at least 8GB and if you plan to run multiple machines communicating together as much as you can afford - I do believe that Docker has less overhead, but again, for my use, not needed).

The best practice is what works for you, not the latest trend.

[lastgeniusua]

pipenv is a sort of a spliced-together pip and virtualenv, give it a try!