Docker for Software Development

Why Smarter. Students run a realistic multi-container application on day one: a Django web server, Celery workers and a scheduler, MariaDB and Redis, all defined in one Compose file and built from one Dockerfile.

Look at. Dockerfile, docker-compose.yml and the docker-* targets in the Makefile.

Read. Docker, ADR 002 on Docker, ADR 004 on the twelve-factor app.

Exercises.

• Annotate the Dockerfile: what each stage does, why the application runs as a non-root user, and how the image size could be reduced.

• Use docker exec, docker logs and docker stats to follow a chat request from the web server to a Celery worker.

• Explain why the same image runs as the web server, the worker and the scheduler.

Course plans. Three complete, ready-to-teach plans, each with a schedule, graded assignments and rubrics, two capstone projects, recommended texts, further study and technical prerequisites. See Course Formats and Grading for what the formats have in common.

• Classroom bootcamp: 8 hours
• Two-week online course: 6 hours
• Four-week online course: 12 hours

See the Smarter Instructor Guide to install Smarter and set up a class.