There is an argument about installing development "cruft" directly on your host OS versus the use of virtualization.
I personally hate have long running processes always on in the background of my host OS. It slows things down, and it's not the purpose of your OS. You end up suing a non-standard OS (wayyyy different than production, especially on your Macintosh where the file system isn't case sensitive, to give 1 example).
Some people "need" to install software directly on their host OS because VM's take up too much battery power and they often work too far from an outlet. That can make sense, but I still cringe at the idea.
I think Docker provides the best of both worlds here. We have real isolation from our host OS without having to virtualize an entire OS - It even removes a whole layer of battery-eating virtualization! (Hypervisor, I believe)
Docker (for local development) will let you get very close to your production OS while still being easy to use and (relatively) light-weight.
Comments
There is an argument about installing development "cruft" directly on your host OS versus the use of virtualization.
I personally hate have long running processes always on in the background of my host OS. It slows things down, and it's not the purpose of your OS. You end up suing a non-standard OS (wayyyy different than production, especially on your Macintosh where the file system isn't case sensitive, to give 1 example).
Some people "need" to install software directly on their host OS because VM's take up too much battery power and they often work too far from an outlet. That can make sense, but I still cringe at the idea.
I think Docker provides the best of both worlds here. We have real isolation from our host OS without having to virtualize an entire OS - It even removes a whole layer of battery-eating virtualization! (Hypervisor, I believe)
Docker (for local development) will let you get very close to your production OS while still being easy to use and (relatively) light-weight.
Unless you develop natively on Linux, Docker must still run inside of a VM, so there is no real battery savings.