Semi-technical thoughts

Many companies these days are starting using Docker in their workflow, both big shots and tiny startups, even open-source projects which might sometimes be somewhat conservative when it comes to tools. I'm not trying to provide any kind of instruction here but instead to ask questions you should be asking yourself before following or not following their lead. I'm concentrating on context of web services using Django and Python, but it should be applicable to more or less anything. I must admit that Docker is cool. Linux containers is a fascinating thing itself and Docker is a great tool for simplifying their use for whatever purpose. Reusable and simple to build and share images, an easy way to launch those images and do stuff with them is a must if you use them. But should you containerize everything? It might, on the other hand, over-complicate your process without any significant benefits. So the first question is: do you even need containers or would you better off withou...

I've recently discovered nice continuous integration and continuous deployment service – codeship.io . It's not just another hosted Jenkins and it has some very interesting features (like integration with major code hosting services and development tools). But I won't probably use it except maybe for some pet projects of mine with no active development. Here are my reasons why: Free plan is no good for even one project. 50 builds per month is not enough for anything: any project in active development usually needs several daily builds, even if not counting merges and feature branches. Commit early, commit often (and with CI it also means test often) is the usual approach of our days. Cheapest paid plan costs $50 per month. Yes, it has unlimited almost everything, but fifty bucks is small, but significant amount of money and small business (or non-profit project) can usually utilize them better. Setting up Jenkins, on the other hand, would cost you about $5/mo for host...