Docker Captains are select members of the community that are both experts in their field and are passionate about sharing their Docker knowledge with others. “Docker Captains Take 5” is a regular blog series where we get a closer look at our Captains and ask them the same broad set of questions ranging from what their best Docker tip is to whether they prefer cats or dogs (personally, we like whales and turtles over here). Today, we’re interviewing Gianluca Arbezzano who has been a Docker Captain since 2016. He is a Senior Software Staff Engineer at Equinix Metal and is based in Italy.
How/when did you first discover Docker?
At this point, it is not easy to pick a date. Four years ago I was in Dublin away from my home town near Turin. The Docker Meetup along with many other meetups were a great opportunity for nerds like me looking for new friends and to grab free pizza while having a good time. Back then I was working for a company that helps businesses move to the cloud. I saw that Docker was a powerful tool to master. Not only was Docker a useful tool and led me to meet a lot of cool people, but it also helped me to become a better open source citizen and enabled me to have some awesome experiences.
What is your favorite Docker command?
I am an old-style Docker user. Many of the new cool commands are unknown to me. One of the powerful combos I use from time to time is still “docker rm -fv $(docker ps -aq)”– I know, there are better ways! It clearly shows how powerful a good CLI tool and the UNIX philosophy are. I love buildkit, so buildx is also something I use a lot.
What is your top tip that you think other people don’t know about working with Docker?
Do not look at Docker just as the end tool. Look at how the CLI is friendly, the simplicity in writing and reading a Dockerfile. The composition with containerd and runc. The tool itself is just the tip of the iceberg.
What’s the coolest Docker demo you have done/seen ?
Do you know what I love more than watching developers sharing how they set up their workstation and how they take care of their “way of working”? Maintaining my own dotfiles and taking care of my way of working! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYsVvV1aVss Jess Frazel is amazing at sharing and hacking its own environment!
What have you worked on in the past six months that you’re particularly proud of?
I am working at Tinkerbell, a bare metal provisioner that we open source at Equinix Metal. It is now part of the CNCF and my goal is to make it battle-tested and to meet a lot of bare metal enthusiasts that want to know more about how we manage data centers at Equinix Metal.
What do you anticipate will be Docker’s biggest announcement next year?
M1, ARM, AMD and many more. The hardware is coming back to life and the time where Intel was the way to go is over. This is fun, but it adds another variable to our equation. I think Docker will play a major role here with its ability to describe how an application runs and how it gets built.
What do you think is going to the biggest challenge that we, the Docker community, will face in 2021?
Docker is now on everybody’s laptop, but the ecosystem and the developers around the world changed drastically in the last 2-3 years. Containers are not a general purpose technology. Docker needs to keep its UX friendly approach and keep making tools that developers enjoy using. As I told you, I am the kind of user that stopped picking up new Docker features two years ago probably because I like what I know and it is enough for my daily job. But buildkit and buildx made me get back hacking more with containers for example.
What are some personal of your goals for the next year with respect to the Docker community?
I am very picky when it comes to selecting tools for my daily work. I value them a lot and I want to know them perfectly. A new CLI tool takes months of evaluation before being added or removed from my list of everyday utilities. My goal is to find what Docker is uniquely good at. That will sound weird but as I said, things are not like they were six years ago. Nowadays we have more options and experiences.
What talk would you most love to see at DockerCon 2021?
“How Docker increases development ergonomics.”
Looking to the distant future, what is the technology that you’re most excited about right now and that you think holds the most promise?
WASM!
Rapid Fire Questions
What new skills have you mastered or tried to learn during the pandemic?
I bought a house in February, so everything required to get it up and ready! Heavy lifting, cleaning everything multiple times and so on.
Cats or Dogs?
I have one dog and two cats. I love them all!
Salty, sour or sweet?
Salty.
Beach or mountains?
Based on which direction I drive, I can be skiing in one hour or swimming in two hours. No reason to pick only one!
Your most often used emoji?
😀
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You can follow Gianluca on Twitter (https://twitter.com/GianArb) and on his blog (https://gianarb.it/)