That wouldn’t be so bad, except that many framework tools do not let you configure the location of dependencies and temp directories. Most sharing systems ( VirtualBox, NFS) do not support ignoring subdirectories. This may be due to running asset pipelines like those of Rails or Ember that generate tons of temporary files. Generally speaking, sharing files between MacOS and a virtual OS on a hypervisor breaks down when too many reads or writes are required in a short amount of time. Specifically, I am thinking of the speed of shared volumes. I suspected-correctly-that Docker would fall prey to some of the same shortcomings as Vagrant. Then I went to DockerCon this April, which finally gave me enough momentum to figure out how to integrate it into my development workflow. While I’d been interested in Docker for a while, I hadn’t had the time and energy to really dive into it. Alternatively, running two or more virtual machines at once can eat up all of my computer’s resources. Spinning a full VM up and down can take a while. Working at a consultancy, sometimes I need to switch back and forth between multiple projects in a day.
Hypothetically, it offers all the benefits of virtualized development environments like Vagrant (stable, re-creatable, isolated, etc.) but requires fewer resources. For about two years, I’ve wanted to use Docker for local development.
