I'm well-acquainted with Docker's architecture and some of the ways it's used in the field. I wouldn't call it modular. It might be well-factored and even separated into multiple modes and repos, but that's not modularity; that's just good code.

When you ship batteries, people depend on the batteries and that means you can't really swap them when you want to because things stop fitting. It doesn't help that all of this is baked by default into a single monolithically versioned binary with an API whose documentation isn't nearly rigorous or stable enough to promote alternative implementations.

I like Docker or I wouldn't be here commenting, but you know what would make me love Docker? If every piece was pipeable CLI command.

Like...

    docker-listen tcp://,... | docker-run --image-tar=blah --container-tar=blah | docker-monitor --log-file=blah | docker-swarm --orchestrator-socket=orch.sock | docker-link --port=some.other.machine:port

I know this is a crazy rethinking of how Docker's APIs work, but I think that fact perfectly demonstrates my point about how un-modular Docker really is as far as its users are concerned.

I think a model similar to git's "plumbing and porcelain" [1] could work well.

[1] http://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Internals-Plumbing-and-Por...

FWIW, as a startup cofounder with a non-technical partner who likes to do design/copyediting tweaks, the ability to do "docker up" and have it bring the whole system up on Linux, Mac, and cloud is a huge sell. I know how pipes work and can memorize a half dozen commands, but my cofounder certainly does not, and any tweaks she can do on her own is work that I don't have to.

I don't think it's crazy. I think it's cool and your points completely valid.

A good question we have to ask is how do we get from where we are, to the desired end state that you describe? There's nothing stopping it from happening, it's a fork away with a good chance of upstream contribution.

Today that's through proposals and discussions in freely available on github, irc, and mailing lists for the docker project and which we call fire hose of information symbolically.

Maybe we're missing an additional avenue for input and creativity. What do you think?

Well, I think that was my limit right there. If the above message got downvoted, I really don't see any constructive way to have a conversation here. I think I tried.

Come say hi on irc if you want to talk some more. We (the 200-ish people from all horizons on #docker-dev) don't bite.

Happy hacking everyone.

Speaking only for myself, while I have no significant beef with Docker, I've found the general tone of your comments to be slightly off-putting. If others feel the same way, that might explain the downvotes.

I think it boils down to the tension between HN as a place for uninvolved commenters to discuss articles, and as a place for the subjects of those articles to engage in that discussion. Not to slight your intentions, but a comment like "I will work it out right here with you." comes across as an attempt to wrest control of the conversational dynamic, not to mention a little confrontational. For better or for worse, that's something that doesn't really fly when you have an obvious vested interest.

This is not meant as criticism, just food for thought that might help explain the frosty reception you've been getting around here.

"slightly off-putting" Argh, we are in a forum, this is communication deprived of non-verbal cues. Just focus on the intent and the information. I think shykes deserves more than judging of his tone. I also think it is cool he is hanging out here managing (mis)information. Are you all jealous or something? You have the chance to ask anything you want to someone who is the driving force behind a project of which the implications are hard to overestimate. And you find his tone off-putting.

I'm just a biologist but if any of the big names in my field (say, Hans Clevers, is that a stretch?) would be approachable on a forum, man that would great!!

I read it differently. I read it as: "it seems you have a key issue but I disagree with you. However, if you clarify your issue I will stay here and discuss it in the open right now."

Same here. I perceived it as very friendly and helpful.

>comes across as an attempt to wrest control of the conversational dynamic

And why shouldn't he do that? He's the one who sweated his ass to create the program, the other guy is just some random user who got it for free (and open source) and complains for something.

(I didn't downvote you, just FTR.)

I think this is the kind of thing that might be at issue: https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/6791 [1] (I realize that the ticket is not closed, I just bring it up as an example of something that I see as counter to commoditization and thus counter to my goals as a user.)

One of the issues that I personally have with docker (much as I love it) is that it also wants to be a process supervision "framework" (for lack of a better word). I don't want that, I want a reliable way to supervise a docker-started process from whatever supervisor daemon that I want (whether that be systemd, runit, or whatever). This is not really for ideological reasons -- I want something that integrates properly into my distribution of choice, not something that wants to be a system unto itself.

[1] ... I'm obviously not the submitter of this issue. I just stumbled upon it during a related search.

I understand, but the problem is that to "just run a container" Docker needs to manage global system state and synchronize with other docker instances. Right now that is done with the daemon. How do I do this without? CoreOS's answer is basically "systemd should do all that". But to me that is not an acceptable answer. I don't want to tie Docker to systemd. It's already too monolithic as it is. Do we really want to absorb the docker daemon's functionality into it too? Because that's exactly what CoreOS is proposing with Rocket. I think that's a flawed design and the opposite of composable.