Docker - The Good, Bad, and Ugly

You've heard about it. Maybe used it - probably. You even have opinions - or know someone who has opinions. There are all sorts of technologies built on top of docker that you're supposed to become familiar with - Kubernetes, Rancher, Docker-Compose, Swarm...It's clearly the wild west (reminds me of the Javascript framework space eh? Too soon?). I have opinions too, and I will share some of them with you, showing you some examples of how I make Docker work for me and why I think it is such an incredibly powerful technology. I will also talk about some of the downsides I find with it and briefly talk about some of the things I do to mitigate these downsides.

Whether you are new or old to DevOps and developing, Docker is a fast-moving, tough to keep track of technology that is changing (already has?) the paradigm of how we do DevOps. Like all things in the engineering profession, there are some tradeoffs. I think the benefits greatly outweigh the risks and I'll talk you through some of these things and show you what I find to be a fairly simple path forward through the chaos.

Who is this guy?:
John Epperson has been a developer since 2007. He has primarily worked on large, enterprise apps for small companies and worn many hats in the process. He is the author of Shiplane, a tool for making Docker deployment to production much easier. He enjoys playing and hanging out with his 2-year-old son, fixing up his house, and Scotch. He is always happy to help, mentor, or answer questions to anyone and appreciates the same from others. His love for mentoring and helping others led him to co-found a little group called Charlotte Junior Devs in 2017, now known as Charlotte Devs.