DEV Community

Discussion on: Are you using Docker for local development?

Collapse
 
thatblairguy profile image
That Blair Guy

Avoiding the ops is a major selling point for Docker on the desktop. Once the image (or at the very least, the Dockerfile) is created, there's no need to install anything on the local system.

I used to run VMs so I could install tools (e.g. database servers, web servers, etc.) without screwing up my primary system. With Docker, all the installation is done in a container.

Need to switch back and forth between multiple versions of node? Shut down the old container, and spin up another with the other version and you're ready to go. The time to switch is measurable in minutes and the host system is unaffected.

There is a paradigm switch, because you have to figure out what files need to live outside the container and which ones don't, but it's much lighter weight than VMs and faster than uninstalling/reinstalling every time you want to update part of your stack.