[davexunit]

>Docker might still be nice for perfect reproducibility

Docker actually doesn't help reproducibility at all, because the underlying reproducibility problems present in the distro and build systems are used are still present. See GNU Guix, Nix, and Debian's Reproducible Builds project for efforts to make build truly reproducible.

I had a good laugh when I read "the Rube Goldberg Machine development anti-pattern". This describes the situation of "modern" web development perfectly. I'll add that such software typically requires 3 or more different package managers in order to get all of the necessary software. And yes, Omnibus is an abomination and Docker is much better.

I think Docker is papering over issues with another abstraction layer. It's like static linking an entire operating system for each application. Rather than solving the problem with traditional package management, Docker masks the problem by allowing you to make a disk image per application. That's great and all, but now you have an application that can only reasonably be run from within a Linux container managed by Docker. Solving this problem at the systems level, which tools like GNU Guix do, allows even complex, big ball of mud software to run in any environment, whether that is unvirtualized "bare metal", a virtual machine, or a container.

[garthk]

> It's like static linking an entire operating system for each application.

You say it like it's a problem, but that's the most concise description of Docker I've yet read. It rhymes with the way all the fed up oldies using Go like its static linking.

[nulltype]

This is pretty much how I view Docker as well. Except it's not really the entire operating system. A VM image is the ultimate static linking.

[api]

Nothing wrong with linking together a couple things to build an app... I call it Rube Goldberg (a.k.a. ball of mud, pile of crap, etc.) when it's like dozens of things that all have to be tweaked in exactly a certain way or everything assplodes.

I simply will not run apps like that unless I have no choice. If I see that, plonk it goes into the trash.

... and yes, the whole package management situation is comical. Every language has its own package management system, and the OS, and sometimes people use both at the same time. It's ridiculous.