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Discussion on: Easy Dockerization with Docker INIT

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levelleor profile image
Levelleor • Edited

Why docker compose and not docker run? Is it in some way better? It feels like an excess technology to use when just simply running a single container.

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jimbozo profile image
James Stokes

The docker-compose approach means you only need to figure it out once. If you're going things like mounting volumes, opening ports, etc your docker run incantation can become complex.

Defining a docker-compose saves you time in the future ensuring all of your requirements are saved in your docker-compose.yml and you only have to run docker-compose up to get your server running.

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scofieldidehen profile image
Scofield Idehen

Nice.

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levelleor profile image
Levelleor

Got you. I was curious to why docker created that compose file instead of just expecting the users to run docker run command. Your reply answered that question.

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Martin Ledoux • Edited

I have a couple reasons:

Arguably more containers will be added - so this is a trivial example.

But even for such a simple example, any startup params can be saved in that yml file for repeated usage, like volumes, select environment variables (this one container may not need everything in .env), port mappings, etc...
Before I learned Compose, I was writing shell scripts to maintain these values.

Plus, apparently this new Init tool writes the file for you, so why not?