text stringlengths 0 2.46k |
|---|
And as we were working on our Dev Containers extension, and working with Codespaces, we saw "Hey, Dev Containers can be something broadly useful beyond just VS Code, or GitHub tooling, or Microsoft tools." It's something that people want to use even if they don't use VS Code. Or maybe they can't; maybe their company us... |
So then we started openly working on the Dev Containers spec the beginning of last year, maybe the end of the year before... So it's been a year, a year and a half or so. But I think like a vision going in was, "Hey, we don't think Dev Containers have to be tied to VS Code." And that was even when they were only a Dev ... |
\[22:06\] So that's why the file is like devcontainer.json. It doesn't have to say specific things about VS Code in the file name or in its content. And we've even been taking steps as we've been working on the spec to generalize it beyond VS Code or Codespaces. So for certain properties in devcontainer.json settings, ... |
**Jerod Santo:** Yeah, and I think it's really cool to open this up and have other tools, other sites, other cloud things adopted. I do think that Codespaces is such a killer intro to the possibility of using Dev Containers, because it reminds me - I don't know about you, Adam, but it kind of reminds me of that deploy ... |
**Brigit Murtaugh:** Yeah. |
**Jerod Santo:** ...and literally, three to five minutes later... It's not immediate; it's close. Because of course, there's lots of stuff that has to get set up inside of that container; that first run experience, in order for it to do its thing. And all of a sudden, there you are - you're both looking at editing, and... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** For sure. It's a beautiful thing. I mean, you need this for open source in particular. What a great thing for would-be contributions that just get stopped because it's like "Oh, gosh, this contributing file... I love your stack, but I don't want to mess my pristine machine up" or "I don't want to de... |
So that kind of like encourages the possibility of polyglot, to some degree, or at least contributions to polyglot worlds. Even if it's not something you're like a primary contributor to, but you're able to put your own contribution in, whether you're a designer, or documentation, or whatever it might be; to be able to... |
**Brigit Murtaugh:** Yeah. I think that's a great point. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** So the contribution we have - it's got a devcontainer.json file, it's got a dockercompose.yaml file... At what part of this is the Dev Container spec, and what part of this is Codespaces? Where is the line, I suppose, in that world? Is it like they adhere to or support your spec? Do they have their ... |
**Brigit Murtaugh:** Yeah, so you can kind of think of the spec as essentially that devcontainer .json file. So we're seeking to enrich other formats, whether it's a Docker file, or a Docker Compose, or maybe potentially others over time, with metadata from the devcontainer.json. |
\[26:03\] So it can include those tools, specific things, like we were mentioning. It can also be a spot where you can add or install other scripts, or technology, or parts of your tech stack there like you might do in a Docker file; you could instead do it in the devcontainer.json. We have ways kind of built-in to mak... |
So really, devcontainer.json it's going to be the core of "Hey, like this is what is defined by the Dev Container spec." And then you can also then think of like a reference implementation for the spec, or what is an example of how other tools could implement the spec over time is a Dev Container CLI that we open sourc... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** So this is the essential Lego. Not the finalized Lego that you could build; these are the components that you could build to support essentially running code remotely, or in a Codespaces... So if I wanted to build my own Codespaces, essentially, I could use the CLI tool, I can use different things, ... |
**Brigit Murtaugh:** Yeah. If you want to build your own tool that supports Dev Containers, like you're seeing in Codespaces, you're seeing the Dev Containers extension, you can then use that same exact CLI, and then hook it up to specifically what your tool needs. So if your tool needed other kinds of things... Like, ... |
**Break:** \[28:10\] |
**Jerod Santo:** What's the experience like as a user of VS Code today? Let's say I open up VS Code, a project, I've cloned a repository that has a devcontainer.json file. What does it change about the VS Code environment? Which extra buttons do I get, or what all does it do? ...assuming Dev Container does what a typic... |
**Brigit Murtaugh:** Yeah, so VS Code will detect if you have a .devcontainer folder, or if you have a devcontainer.json, which could be in that .devcontainer folder, or at the root level of your project, and it'll recommend, "Hey, it looks like your project has a Dev Container configuration. Reopen in there to develop... |
**Jerod Santo:** And the devcontainers.json, at least the one that we got from Chris Eggert , is super-basic. I mean, it's basically 10 lines... And it's mostly setting up a workspace, a couple of port forwards, and then pointing to the Docker Compose file that Adam was referencing. And the Docker Compose file is the o... |
So if anybody's already using Docker Compose for their own personal development environment, all they need to do is add devcontainer.json, and point it to the right things; a little bit of configuration goes a long way, and now all of a sudden you can run that same environment in Codespaces. You can get the VS Code ext... |
**Brigit Murtaugh:** Yeah. I like that statement, "You're a devcontainer.json away." We can use that as a tagline. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, I like that too. |
**Brigit Murtaugh:** And you can even add more stuff to your devcontainer.json. I was mentioning "Oh, what if I'm thinking, I really just need Python in this project. How should I add it?" I could install it in the command line, but then either I have to install it locally, or if I install it in the command line in my ... |
**Jerod Santo:** So how far do you go with that? Because I expect -- we have so many different ways of specifying, like editor config, then you've got your VS Code config, maybe you've got your vim config, maybe you have your Git ignore... Of course, that's just a file that's in your repo, but... There's just so many d... |
**Brigit Murtaugh:** \[34:08\] I like the way you put it, of "Is this something that the project really needs, or is this something that I just like using, or that I need?" It's really a helpful distinction. So I think if it's something that's super-specific, like "Hey, I like this editor theme" or "I like my editor si... |
So thinking about like "Hey, if this project really needs this language", or if maybe this linting tool is really helpful, or... Maybe there are certain editor extensions, like language support extensions, like a Python, or a Java, or a C++ language extension for an editor. Those are probably really helpful additions, ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Is there room for a .local file in that case? Maybe Jerod and I, this moves forward, and we keep loving it, and there's a devcontainer.json in our repo, but let's say I like a special flavor of something whenever I spin up my personalized container. Can I have a devcontainer.local? Is that a bad ide... |
**Brigit Murtaugh:** Yeah, there's a few different ways you can handle it. So depending on the editor environment you use - so let's say you're using VS Code; there's certain specific settings, you may be able to take in your editor, where then you don't even need to set certain things in your dev container. VS Code ha... |
But then thinking about other editors, or if you don't want to use those kinds of extensions, it depends... You could actually have multiple devcontainer.jsons in a project, and then depending on how the supporting tool implements it, they can guide you for "Hey, which one do you want to use right now, when you're work... |
That can also be helpful for maybe if you're working on a monorepo that has different dependencies for different sub-parts of the project; then you can have multiple dev container.jsons there, depending on what you're specifically working on, or what some of your other teammates are working on. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Interesting. Keep my local flavors. I like my local flavors. Gotta keep the local flavors |
**Jerod Santo:** Yeah, you're special, man. You've gotta keep it special. So when it comes to adoption, I'm googling around frantically as we talk, looking at, okay, is the Vim community trying to do some of this, is the Emacs community trying to do stuff? Some people are just switching; they're just watching the VS Co... |
\[38:08\] So you kind of have like the editor side, but then you also have the cloud provider side, and you have two implementations - VS Code and Codespaces. But on both sides, you have like the open source, like Vim, Emacs, integrated into small projects, like Sublime Text, and then you have Codespaces, Gitpod, I'm s... |
**Brigit Murtaugh:** Yeah, when we first were announcing, "Hey, we're working on this spec, and we open sourced this CLI", we announced it on, for instance, the VS Code Blog, or Codespaces channels too... But we wanted to emphasize "Hey, even if you're finding out about it on the VS Code Blog or something, the point is... |
So I think like getting the word out more, of like "Hey, it's an open thing, and you can check it out here. And we're super-looking forward to your feedback. We accept contributions, or we're happy to talk to you about questions, feedback, contributions, and all that kind of stuff." I think just getting that open dialo... |
And yeah, we have a section on the containers.dev site about supporting tools. You'll see that it's trickling out to some other like CLIs, and projects, and things like that... But I think also seeing more devontainer.json files, or .devcontainer folders, and other open source projects has been a huge help as well... B... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** When you get this feedback, what are some of the biggest hurdles to get over? What are the things that really stop people, or what are the things that really get people excited? Obviously, the usefulness, but what are the things that really push back against using it? |
**Brigit Murtaugh:** I think at the beginning it was just them not feeling like a very open, or like super-adopted thing, of like "Okay, cool. Yeah, maybe there's good adoption in VS Code-specific tooling, but what other tools are using them?" So sometimes it can be like a chicken or the egg problem, where it's like "O... |
So I think establishing that trust and awareness with folks is definitely something that isn't just like an easy formula of "Oh, yeah, here's how we get the word out to everyone who might want to use this." And "Yeah, they're just gonna know, and trust, and understand that yeah, we really want to prioritize and invest ... |
\[41:58\] So just slowly trying to build that trust and understanding, and getting that open feedback channel over time has been really cool, but it's something that we kind of needed to just experiment with over time, and we're still figuring out; we're still figuring out, "Hey, what are some cool open source projects... |
**Jerod Santo:** I mean, it seems like to me the best pitch for cloud things is like "Hey, here's an easy adoption avenue", right? Like, you can be there with your deploy to cloud thing, or develop in cloud thing x, just like the one Codespaces works on github.com right now. And then on the indie side, like the develop... |
**Brigit Murtaugh:** Yeah. More people can use it and contribute. That's awesome. |
**Jerod Santo:** Yeah. I mean, who doesn't want that? And I think the demystification -- so for us specifically, I know we kind of wanted a Codespaces set up for a little while, but Adam, and I thought, "Well, we need to talk to Cory and the Codespaces team." I don't think he's on the team anymore, but when he was, he ... |
And so I think that plays into this other thing you have on the website, which is the templates. You have kind of two subsections of the Dev Containers website. You have the features, which you talked about, but now you have the templates, which to me, I'm reading this - and help me understand exactly what these are...... |
**Brigit Murtaugh:** Yeah, absolutely. And I think you also really nailed another challenge, and something that I was kind of mentioning earlier, of "Hey, I don't know where to get started with containers. Or like maybe I've heard feedback from other folks that they're complex, confusing, time-consuming, compute-intens... |
So yeah, we really try to make it easier to get started with Dev containers, and to make it so that we're really taking out complexity, where folks might have previously found complexity when doing containerized development... So yeah, with templates, we have a set that we host as part of the spec, so for a variety of ... |
**Jerod Santo:** Yeah, I think that's gonna be key... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I was looking at one of the templates there... It's the Elixir, Phoenix, Node, and Postgres, Jerod. Not MySQL Postgres, so... |
**Jerod Santo:** Hey, that's perfect. That's us. We need all those things. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[45:35\] It doesn't look like ours, though. I mean, not that it has to be the same, but there's obviously two different ways to roam... In this case, at least. So essentially what you're saying, Brigit, is this template exists there. I could take the devcontainer.json and I can take the Docker Comp... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.