The Importance of Containers in Development

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Welcome to season 5 of the award-winning .NET Core Podcast! Check that link for proof.

Hello everyone and welcome to THE .NET Core Podcast. An award-winning podcast where we reach into the core of the .NET technology stack and, with the help of the .NET community, present you with the information that you need in order to grok the many moving parts of one of the biggest cross-platform, multi-application frameworks on the planet.

This episode features Carl Sargunar, a web developer who has been freelancing for nine years and specializes in the content management system Umbraco.

Sargunar noted that the barrier for entry for trying new technologies has been greatly reduced. It is now as easy as finding the right tutorial, YouTube video, or Sargunar’s own resources. Visual Studio Code is one of the nicest editors available, and developers can right-click on a project to add a container to it. We discuss how Docker can be used to create reproducible builds and have truly cross-platform code.

The .NET technology stack now runs on any operating system and architecture, including Arm, Raspberry Pi’s, and other IoT devices. Developers can dual boot to Linux or use a Mac machine, and can run their apps on a variety of devices and architectures. Umbraco embraced .NET Core and took on a full platform rewrite to migrate the entire code base from Framework to 3.1. .NET developers have the luxury of using any tool they are comfortable with, and they can run their apps on brand new CPU architectures like the M1 and M2 chips.

Docker makes it easy to try out new technologies without needing to buy expensive hardware or install Linux. GitHub Code Spaces and JetBrains Fleet allow developers to spin up an IDE in the cloud so that they do not need a powerful machine to develop applications. Containers can be shared with others so that they can work on the same project without needing to install the same software. Docker files are plain text files that describe the changes made to the environment, making troubleshooting much easier.

Carl recently ran a workshop at the Code Garden Conference, introducing people to containers. He explained how Docker containers can be used to quickly and easily spin up an application with multiple containers, such as a web server, a database server, and a small website running Blazer and an API. Docker Compose can be used to build and run the application with just one command, and containers can be used to abstract away the operating system and dependencies, making it easier to deploy applications.

The full show notes, including links to some of the things we discussed and a full transcription of this episode, can be found at https://dotnetcore.show/episode-123-docker-for-net-devs-with-carl-sargunar/

Useful Links from the episode:

• Carl on Twitter
• Carl's Blog
• Carl's Umbraco Workshop on GitHub
• the infamous Rob Miles
• Tabs and Spaces
• Docker for Windows
• Mac in Cloud
• GitHub's Code Spaces
• JetBrains Fleet
• open container standard
• Project Rider – A New Challenger Appears

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