Popular technologies come with an enormous amount of “promotional” material. Docker is no exception to this rule: you find an endless stream of things to read, to watch and to listen to about Docker and containers. With only a limited amount of time at your hand, where should you spend it?
A few weeks ago, I was facing the same problem. I found many things that were not so useful, and I spent far too much time on them. However, at the same time I found the 3 resources I like to share with you today. I hope they can be of great use for you too. I am still new to the topic and appreciate if you post your favourite books, videos and tutorials as a comment to this post.
Docker in Action (2nd edition) by Jeff Nickoloff
I like to read about new things first and then do my own experiments. Therefore, I like to start my list with a book. Jeff Nickoloff does a great job of explaining all the possibilities you get from Docker and how you can do them in Docker in Action (2nd edition).
The book is concise and still offers all the details you need to understand what is going on. You can follow along the examples and learn quickly what it takes to run software inside a container. With that knowledge you can start your own journey and when something does not work as expected, you can come back to the book and find an explanation on what you did wrong. It happened to me a few times because I missed the tiny little details that are necessary.
With its clear structure, you can read only the parts that you are interested in and still understand what is going on. That is a great help when you come back a few weeks later and need to know something specific.
Dev and Test Agility for your Database with Docker by Julie Lerman
Everyone talks about the great flexibility that Docker brings to your development process. But what does this mean? We run virtual machines; how much better can Docker be? Julie Lerman gives you answers to those questions in her advertisement-free talk Dev and Test Agility for your Database with Docker from NDC Oslo 2019.
If you can spare 67 minutes, you should spend them with listening to this talk. You will learn how Docker simplifies your development environment, how you can benefit from the built-in features of Docker for testing and what great options you have when you need to use SQL Server from Microsoft. Docker makes this combination so much simpler that what you can get using virtual machines.
Does this sound to good to be true? There are problems along the way that Julie points out for you. All you must do is not to repeat the same mistakes and you are able to get your environment up and running without much problems.
Modernizing .NET Framework Apps with Docker by Elton Stoneman
The ideas that you find in Julies talk are expanded in all directions by Elton Stoneman in his Pluralsight course Modernizing .NET Framework Apps with Docker. To watch this nearly 4 hours long course you need to buy a Pluralsight subscription. What you learn there can save your company a multitude of that fee.
Most developers have to maintain existing applications and cannot start with a greenfield project when they want to work with Docker. Elton acknowledges this by using his legacy application as an example. Step by step is this old application extended with new capabilities and modern concepts. You should find yourself at home quickly and can watch how he overcomes all the obstacles that are hiding along the way. When it is your turn, you can focus on the important parts and start modernizing your application in the parts that yield the biggest benefit.
Conclusion
These 3 resources where a great help for me to decide that Docker is a lot more than just a fancy new technology that will go away in a few years. Docker has the potential to significantly change how we write software and make DevOps a reality. I can’t wait to see where this will lead us.