A Modern C Development Environment
A Modern C Development Environment
Spinning up a C development environment using CMake, Docker, Unity, and GitHub Actions.
What is the benefit of these containerised dev environments?
I guess the biggest benefit is that you can ship it directly from there and don't have to rewrite your application because Debian ships with an outdated version of some core library
So it's not a dev environment at all. It's a runtime.
If your code only works on your machine, to the extent that you literally have to ship a copy of your entire machine, your code sucks.
"it works on my machine" is an excuse. And a shitty one at that.
edit, and this way, after a week or two, your container will be the one using an outdated version of a library, not the system.
The advantage is that you can have a reproducible development environment regardless of the underlying platform.
You use Debian and a workmate uses Fedora? No problem.
Someone joins with Mac or Windows? No problem.
Your laptop dies and you're using something temporary for a while? No problem.
No more differences of system libraries or "Well it works on my laptop" bullshit. Everyone is using the same libraries and compiler so there is no difference in any developer's experience.
So it's a different way to get a standard operating environment.
Could you not achieve something similar by making the build and test happen in the docker container, while keeping the IDE etc separate? Bundling the IDE seems a bit overkill.
Fwiw, in my experience, "it works on my laptop" is a great way to shake out bugs/API implementation quirks, so that's a benefit for our team. Plus we have a mishmash of IDEs, so prescribing one or the other would probably cause more problems than it solved.
Still, interesting solution for those who have the problem.
it's "modern" all right, in that it tries using all the buzzwords.
But why?
Convenience and reproducibility
Using platform independent package managers instead of relying on system libraries seems like a more straightforward solution to a good part of the problem at least. It's often good to use multiple compilers as well, which would add to the bloat of the container. There are probably some gnarly situations where pros outweigh the cons though.