I’ve just released the 2020 edition of my award-winning Docker Deep Dive book, and it was an absolute blast to write!
The previous edition was recognised by Book Authority as the best Docker book of all time. However, lots has changed since that edition was written.
My favourite thing about writing this edition was the simplicity of Docker compared to Kubernetes. Here’s a few highlights:
- Swarm is a great product and it’s sooooo easy to use
- Security is configured out-of-the box and can be incredibly simple
- The recent Compose Spec announcement is exciting
- The stability of Docker releases is a great thing
I was also able to massively reduce the price of the paperback edition.
Here’s a few thoughts and highlights…
Swarm vs Kubernetes
Just because Kubernetes is the dominant cloud-native orchestrator doesn’t mean it’s the only one. In my honest opinion, Docker Swarm is an amazing product and satisfyingly simple to use. I’m really pleased that Mirantis announced further development of Swarm, as well as continued support.
Docker Security
Docker, Inc. did a great job integrating security into Docker. It comes out of the box with sensible defaults and it’s not super-hard to lock things down even tighter. Too many security technologies are prohibitively complex, but this isn’t the case with many of the Docker security technologies. As a quick example, the docker trust command helped me massively simplify the section on image signing.
Docker release stability
One of my issues with Kubernetes (another amazing technology that I love) is the rapid release cycle. We typically see 4 major releases per year and a lot can change between releases – even breaking changes.
Four major releases a year is hard for anyone to keep up with, especially large enterprises. At the time of writing (May 2020) Docker 19.03.8 is the latest version, and the 19.03 release family is nearly a year old. That’s what I call stability.
Reducing the price of the paperback
I was absolutely gutted that the Amazon printing costs forced the price of the previous paperback edition over $50 USD. I was rightly proud of that edition — it was named as best Docker book of all time — but I was gutted at the high price. As a result, I was determined to reduce the printing costs of this edition and worked hard on all of the following:
- Making things more concise
- Removing excessive colour form diagrams
- Removing non-strategic content
- Reducing the font size to something more professional
The font size in the previous edition was by far the largest of any technical book I own. So, for this edition, I decided to go with the same font size I’ve been using for **The Kubernetes Book**. It looks loads better and has helped reduce printing costs.
I was really pleased to be able to shorten the installation chapter from 24 pages down to 6 pages. This is mainly due to much simpler ways to install Docker.
The final result was a reduced page count from 412 down to 238, allowing me to reduce resale price from ~$55 to $39.99 (Amazon sets pricing for other markets based on exchange rates).
Final thoughts
Docker is amazing technology, and I loved writing this edition of the book. I’m committed to annual updates and further development of content in the book.
You can get paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon, as well as other ebook formats on Leanpub.
Feel free to connect!
