[harha_]

Yeah, it feels like nothing but a little trick. Why would anyone want to actually use this? The exe simply calls docker, it can embed an image into the exe but even then it first calls docker to load the embedded image.

[jve]

I see a use case. The other day I wished that I could pack CLI commands as docker containers and execute them as CLI commands and get return codes.

I haven't tried this stuff, but maybe this is something in that direction.

[lelanthran]

> I see a use case. The other day I wished that I could pack CLI commands as docker containers and execute them as CLI commands and get return codes

I don't understand this requirement/specification; presumably this use-case will not be satisfied by a shell script, but I don't see how.

What are you wanting from this use-case that can't be done with a shell script?

[matsemann]

I do that for a lot of stuff. Got a bit annoyed with internal tools that was so difficult to set up (needed this exact version of global python, expected this and that to be in the path, constantly needed to be updated and then stuff broke again). So I built a docker image instead where everything is managed, and when I need to update or change stuff I can do it from a clean slate without affecting anything else on my computer.

To use it, it's basically just scripts loaded into my shell. So if I do "toolname command args" it will spin up the container, mount the current folder and some config folders some tools expect, forward some ports, then pass the command and args to the container which runs them.

99% of the time it works smooth. The annoying part is if some tool depends on some other tool on the host machine. Like for instance it wants to do some git stuff. I will then have to have git installed and my keys copied in as well for instance.

[johncs]

Basically the same as Python’s zipapps which have some niche use cases.

Before zipapp came out I built superzippy to do it. Needed to distribute some python tooling to users in a university where everyone was running Linux in lab computers. Worked perfectly for it.

[j45]

Could be ease of use for end users who don't docker.

[worldsayshi]

But now you have two problems.