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by gwmnxnp_516a 1801 days ago
Not a founder. The catch is that docker fixes the Linux dependency hell problem that stems from the fact that the server Linux distribution may not have the dependencies you need for running your application and if you install your dependencies that are not in the distro repository, such as shared libraries or other executables, that may override the existing ones and mess the system or break something. Even a native executable may fail to run in the server if it is using an older version of version of GlibC than the one the application was linked against. Therefore, this problem may also affect ruby and python libraries written in C, C++ or Fortran. Other advantage is that docker reproduces entirely the development environment and encapsulates its configuration. So, docker also saves time that would be spent on manual system configuration chores, editing configuration files, creating symbolic links and so on. By using docker or any other container technology such as Podman from Read-Hat one can also get pre-configured and pre-made systems up and running quicker and also swap the configuration.

A reason, for not using docker would be when using any application written in Go (Golang) since Go static links almost everything and does not even rely on Linux GlibC (GNU C library), so an application built with Golan can even run in old distributions.
2 comments
xfitm3 1801 days ago
that's why you install app dependencies into /opt and run your app from there. a simple LD_LIBRARY_PATH update will make your life easier.

docker adds complexity. complexity makes you feel smart but it's the enemy of reliability

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hbogert 1801 days ago
Familiarity bias? Maybe you are just accustomed to your current rats nest.

What if you have collisions in /opt? What if a change in the ordering of the paths in LD_LIBRARY_PATH causes a domino effect. Reliable? I'm not sure, it depends on the determinism and responsibilities the deploy mechanism has.

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rp8 1801 days ago
I actually deploy all go services in docker too as it can leverage existing system control / monitoring / logging from Linux without writing custom scripts for each service.
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