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In my job I needed to checkout and debug an old project, which turned out to be hell due the fact I had to build my development environment from a scratch to satisfy the desired dependencies for the desired workflow. Project configuration has been based on various eclipse plugins like m2e-wtp. Regardless of trying four different versions of Eclipse, I always encountered some compatibility issues or cryptic warnings of missing builder, and ultimately had to fall back on external server deployment pattern.

I wondered, why we wouldn't persist the development environment itself as a Docker container to avoid this kind of time wasting? As far as I know, Docker is mainly used to encapsulate and ship the application with it's runtime environment as a complete, modular and isolated unit. But is it common or reasonable to containerize the development environment itself? I could see huge benefits from enabling the version control on development environment to keep the team in sync.

Tuomas Toivonen
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  • Not sure why you would get a downvote, except maybe some lack of research: using container as build tools is, in fact, a near-standard use case. However, what you're trying to do it have a whole IDE in there. That's where it becomes fun. Search for and check out some of the work of former Docker employee Jess Frazelle on some "Xtreme Docker" stuff she did. – Marakai May 23 '16 at 03:58

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I think containerizing the build and/or test environment can have many advantages, however developers depend on many tools. There is a risk of ending up with a very bloated container.

Only my opinion though.

ateles
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It's reasonable, depending on your situation, of course. This session from JavaOne last year gives a good overview of options, pros and cons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txY9XahFpjI.

Bert Jan Schrijver
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