Computers as Docker Platforms

Docker (using LXC, Linux cgroups, Linux namespaces and union mounted file systems) is a powerful and efficient alternative to virtual machines. docker.io released their 1.0 version last month.

This is an ingenious implementation of boundary separation as seen implemented in the past on computers as inter-process communication (IPC), OS virtualization (as KVM and Solaris Containers) and
Java servlets on tomcat. As a side note, in the software world Java was heavily promoted with a promise of allowing the writing once and running anywhere of software. Reality has not fulfilled these promises. Recently Java was surpassed by python as the most popular programming language for teaching programming in higher education.

An operating system simply allows software applications to run. Keeping application boundaries clear has been tied to operating systems for a long time. UNIX software and the hardware used to run these computers has changed a lot. Docker may be the answer. The power of boundary separation and abstractions is that you don’t need to understand the other parts. It’s gotten so “easy” for end users that even without a full understanding of how things work many people today in the developed world can use embedded computers in their TVs, thermostats, raspberry pi, phones/tablets/mobile (often using iOS or Android), laptops or desktop computers. Yet when something goes wrong, down the rabbit hole we must go to figure out what’s really going on across the layers of abstractions and boundaries. What do you think?

Due to the 2014 FIFA World Cup final game viewing we may not be able to get as much space at Bobby Gs as we need. We may seek more space at Cafe Au Coquelet down University on the same block, 2000 University Ave.

We meet on the second and fourth Sundays of each month from noon to three in Berkeley near the Downtown Berkeley BART station near the corner of University & Shattuck. We hope you join us at Bobby G’s Pizzeria and/or join the discussion on our email list.