Do Frontend Developers Need to Know Docker? (Let’s find out)

In this article, we are going to look at what docker is, what it’s actually used for and the different instances where frontend developers are required to use docker.

What is Docker?

Docker is an open-source platform that assists developers to build, deploy, run, update and manage applications more efficiently in a standardized way. 

Docker works by packaging an application and all it needs (libraries, code, system tools, etc.) into virtual containers. 

This working process allows you to quickly deploy applications into any environment containing Docker, and your code will run without any problem.

Containers here refers to standardized, executable components that combine application source code with other dependency libraries required to run that code in any environment.

With containers, development and delivery of distributed applications are smooth and seamless. 

Containerization offers full predictability across all environments. 

So when you send your applications to different servers ( development, testing, production ), they will run in a predictable way.

What’s Docker used for?

As a deployment technology, docker allows you to create standalone environments and it’s very lightweight compared to virtual machines.

After deploying your application using docker, it’s easier to replicate the environment elsewhere. 

The benefits of Docker in building and deploying applications include:

• Caching a cluster of containers
• Flexible resource sharing
• Scalability – many containers can be placed in a single host
• Running your service on hardware that is much cheaper than standard servers
• Fast deployment, ease of creating new instances, and faster migrations.
• Ease of moving and maintaining your applications
• Better security, less access needed to work with the code running inside containers, and fewer software dependencies

Let’s familiarise ourselves with certain Docker terms.

1. Docker Image:

This is an executable file that contains a cutdown operating OS and all the libraries and configurations needed to run the web app.

The Docker image has multiple layers stacked on top of each other and represented by a single object.

A docker image is created using a docker file.

• Docker container:

This refers to a running instance of a docker image. There can be more than one Docker container running from the same docker image with docker acting as an Installation Tool. 

How Docker works and how you can get started with it

5 Different Instances Where Frontend Developers Use Docker

1. Company Usage

There are companies whose applications run on docker and the frontend development team is responsible for checking docker logs and making sure the docker files are correct.

I’ve seen so many cases where frontend developers handle CI/CD tools and even build their own pipelines.

You might argue that this is a DevOps engineer’s task and not a frontend developer’s role but it all boils down to your stated job description at your company as this varies across different companies.

2. The need for a lightweight deployment tool

Unless you are working on a static HTML file or building UI components and pages using Storybook, you will most likely need a development server to serve out/deploy your application.

It’s cheaper for companies with a lot of distribution services, which is usually the case to run their application files on your workstation and docker makes this possible.

As a frontend developer, it’s very uncommon that you don’t have any type of interaction with the backend even if it’s local development.

3. The secured application build process

Again, let’s say you have a CI/CD build pipeline, this entails having build steps.

Docker containers are secure ways of going through these build process and at the very least front end developers needs to know what going on in the build process to be able to debug and solve pipeline log errors if any surfaces.

A Docker-based system is known to be both efficient and highly secured especially when Docker’s best security practices are employed.

4. The versatility of Docker Containers and Docker Images

Some companies already have their standard development environment set up for you where they have all these different services, co-dependencies and tools set up in this development environment as a docker container or a docker image.

In cases like this, you’ll have to synchronize your file systems and work with your virtual machine if you intend to without having to install all the necessary requirements into your local workstation.

5. Developers’ Collaborations

When co-developers initiate some changes to the work environments, and you want those changes to be quick to deploy, easy to roll back and downgrade to a lower version (version control), then Docker can help you with that as well, easing the hurdles of work collaboration.

You can easily connect to relational database instances like Redis as a catching database to Docker containers with a single line of code.

With Docker-compose, you can run and share multi-container applications.

Final Thoughts

It’s not strictly necessary for a frontend developer to learn docker.

However, Docker is gradually becoming a strong piece of a frontend developers’ toolbox because of its rapid adoption.

As a web developer you need to understand that the nature of the job requires continuous learning as well as updating your skillset else you become obsolete and less resourceful in the modern tech space.

If you don’t want to learn Docker, then you would have to find a company that doesn’t care much about relevant tooling or new developments in the IT community.

But learning Docker as a frontend developer will make you industry-ready especially if you are required to run multiple services that need to communicate with each other in a type of microservice architecture.

Still not a core requirement for frontend development but it’s getting odd to call yourself a frontend developer in a work setting without any knowledge of Docker.

Same way you can’t really call yourself a seasoned frontend developer without knowledge of Typescript even though we know Javascript is the major language of the web.

This just means that some things are just worth knowing as a developer due to their widespread adoption, their usefulness in the tech industry and advantages over other default alternatives.

So dust yourself, get learning and increase your worth/value in the developers’ space.

And it’s a wrap.

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Happy Coding!