I’m a retired Unix admin. It was my job from the early '90s until the mid '10s. I’ve kept somewhat current ever since by running various machines at home. So far I’ve managed to avoid using Docker at home even though I have a decent understanding of how it works - I stopped being a sysadmin in the mid '10s, I still worked for a technology company and did plenty of “interesting” reading and training.

It seems that more and more stuff that I want to run at home is being delivered as Docker-first and I have to really go out of my way to find a non-Docker install.

I’m thinking it’s no longer a fad and I should invest some time getting comfortable with it?

    • Dyskolos@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      Not OP, but, seriously asking, why should I? I usually still use VMs for every app i need. Much more work I assume, but besides saving time (and some overhead and mayve performance) what would I gain from docker or other containers?

      • DefederateLemmyMl@feddit.nlEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        what would I gain from docker or other containers?

        Reproducability.

        Once you’ve built the Dockerfile or compose file for your container, it’s trivial to spin it up on another machine later. It’s no longer bound to the specific VM and OS configuration you’ve built your service on top of and you can easily migrate containers or move them around.

          • twei@feddit.deEnglish
            0·
            9 months ago

            If you update your OS, it could happen that a changed dependency breaks your app. This wouldn’t happen with docker, as every dependency is shipped with the application in the container.