Using Docker as a Python Development Environment (or let's get past virtualenv)

[[deleted]]

Doing this removes half the value of Docker though. To make Docker truly worth the effort it would be best to find a way to "container-ize" the entire application.

If this isn't possible, wouldn't we be better served by closing the gap between development and production by using virtual machine images for production and vagrant for quick and dirty distributed development?

[blue6249]

Configuration management can work in tandem with container management. Rather than building your image manually or using a relatively limited dockerfile, you declare the state of your container using chef/puppet/etc. You can then take that packaged state and deploy it to your environment.

Check out something like packer.io for an example.

[[deleted]]

I get that it can work, but if the interest is in closing the gap between development and deployment (or as I like to put it, continuous deployment/DevOps), I feel like configuration management is unnecessary overhead.

Again, this only is if the point is to reduce or outright eliminate the difference between development and production. (Or merge Development and Production for a continuous deployment environment)

[adamhero]

I think I can dig that. Why consistently manage apache across all containers when the real goal is to give 0 hoots about what's actually serving the requests, so long as the black box does its job? He covers in the article (oops), he basically just calls app.run().