Docker has said it will use what it learns from users’ Docker Hub search habits to deliver additional language stacks to customers, and as a result the open-source platform is adding 11 of the most searched programming language stacks to Docker Hub Official Repositories.
“We determined that the community wants prebuilt stacks of their favorite programming languages,” wrote Scott Johnston, senior vice president of product at Docker, on the company’s blog. “Specifically, developers want to get working as quickly as possible writing code without wasting time wrestling with environments, scaffolding and dependencies. So we’ve spent the last several months building and curating Official Repos for the eleven most-searched-for programming language stacks.”
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The Docker Hub Official Repository program allows users to access up-to-date, tested, fully “Dockerized” versions of common components to develop distributed apps. (A Dockerized component is one that can be put within a Docker container.) The additional language stacks include C/C++, Clojure, Go, Hy, Java, Node, Perl, PHP, Python, Rails, and Ruby. In addition to the language stacks, Amazon Web Services and the Perl and Hy projects have joined the program as contributors.
“Dockerized language stacks strengthen the pre-packaged catalog of building blocks freely available to our developers,” said Johnston in a company announcement. “Developers can instantly assemble applications while eliminating a sequence of time-consuming workflows previously dedicated to building these stacks.”
The stacks will feature multiple versions of the language and a tag for each version to allow customers to quickly pull the version they need. And since the language stacks are built with the ONBUILD Dockerfile instruction, when users use a stack as a base image, their build will automatically add their app code to their new image.
“This provides simple automation for your build pipeline while allowing for a clean separation between the language stack and your app’s code and its changes,” Johnston wrote.
There will be a comment section available for each stack of users to collaborate on best practices, submit bug fixes, and provide feature ideas.