Docker Demystified: Your Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Containers

🚢 Imagine building a ship in a bottle, carefully encapsulating every tiny detail so it sails flawlessly, no matter where it’s displayed. That’s Docker for your applications.

If you’ve ever struggled with software that works on your machine but fails elsewhere, Docker is your lifeboat. And if you have not, then it’s mission is still to save you- a low-tech person who is trying to install something useful shared on Github- from the burden of reading over pages of instruction with manual installing method. Not sure this guide will turn you from a Docker novice to a pro, but at least it might help you to grasp a fundamental understanding about Docker, and be able to use it. And if it doesn’t help, read again.

Introduction: Why Docker Compose Exists

Let’s face it: you love running 17 terminal windows - that’s old practise( headless), but nowadays with Docker Desktop ( GUI) you’d probably still end up running 17 containers - just to start your app’s microservices.

Who doesn’t enjoy frantically typing docker run -p this -v that , env something while praying to the DevOps gods? Enter Docker Compose, the tool that does what you definitely have time to do manually. It’s like a babysitter for your containers, except it doesn’t judge you for needing a babysitter.

Docker has revolutionized how developers build, ship, and run applications. But with tools like Docker Desktop and Docker Engine, newcomers often struggle to choose the right option. In this guide, we’ll break down their differences, use cases, and which one suits your OS, workflow.

Docker Engine

• What it is:

  • The core open-source runtime that builds, runs, and manages containers.
  • Includes the dockerd daemon (manages containers), CLI (docker command), and REST API for integration.
  • Runs natively on Linux systems.

• Use Docker Engine if:

Docker for Beginners: Containerize a Simple To-Do List App

Containers are like lunchboxes for your code, they keep everything your app needs neatly packed and ready to run anywhere. In this tutorial, we’ll Dockerize a basic Node.js to-do list app. No prior Docker experience needed!

What You’ll Learn

• How to create a Dockerfile (the recipe for your container).
• How to build a Docker image (the packed lunchbox).
• How to run a container (the lunchbox in action).

Prerequisites

1. Install Docker Desktop (for macOS/Windows) or Docker Engine (for Linux).
2. Basic familiarity with the terminal.
3. Install an IDE( integrated development environment), simply a program with useful tools to write code, such as Visual Studio Code

If you doesn’t know about any of these, or forget, read my previous guide