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As JavaScript containers have emerged in recent years, a debate has developed over their potential impact on Linux containers. Although JavaScript containers are gaining popularity in web services and applications, some wonder whether they will eventually overtake Linux containers as the preferred containerization technology. In this blog post, we'll explore the rise of JavaScript containers and their potential impact on web services, compare them with Linux containers, and discuss the future of containerization.

Before we delve into the specifics of JavaScript and Linux containers, let's define what containers are. Containers are a way to package and run applications in a consistent and isolated manner, making them easily portable and scalable across different computing environments. Containers provide a high level of isolation between various applications and services, ensuring they don't interfere with each other. Some popular containerization technologies include Docker, Kubernetes, and Node.js.

A recent trend in containerization is using JavaScript containers. They offer a lightweight, easy-to-use solution for developers already familiar with JavaScript. With JavaScript containers, developers can package their applications and dependencies into a single container and run them on different computing environments. JavaScript containers make it easier to deploy and scale applications without worrying about the underlying operating system or infrastructure.

JavaScript containers vs. Linux containers

While JavaScript containers have their advantages, Linux containers, particularly Docker containers, are widely used in industry and have a robust ecosystem of tools and support. Linux containers can run various applications and services on different operating systems, making them more versatile than JavaScript containers. Also, Linux containers offer many features and benefits, such as isolation, portability, and scalability, that are critical for modern application development and deployment.

Above table shows the key differences between JavaScript and Linux containers, including the fact that JavaScript containers can run on any operating system, use minimal resources, and have a growing ecosystem with fewer tools and support. On the other hand, Linux containers require a compatible Linux kernel to run, use more resources but are more versatile, and have a mature ecosystem with a wide range of tools and support.

The Importance of Containerization in Software Development

Containerization enables efficient implementation of business logic and ensures scalability, portability, and efficiency of applications and services

Understanding the differences between JavaScript and Linux containers and evaluating the pros and cons of each

Evaluating whether Docker Compose is the right tool for your production environment, including its ease of use for local development and limitations for more complex production environments. Read more 

Effective management of software development environments, including creating separate development, staging, and production environments to reduce the risk of errors and ensure thorough code testing. Read more 

Keeping up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies in containerization to make informed decisions about containerization strategy

Choosing the right tools and effectively managing software development environments to ensure scalable, secure, and reliable containerized applications.

As containerization continues to evolve, it is vital to keep up with innovative technologies and trends. For example, JavaScript containers are also changing with new container runtimes, such as Deno, which is gaining popularity for its improved security and simpler dependency management.

Additionally, Web Assembly (WASM) is becoming increasingly popular for running compiled code in the browser, making it possible to run applications in a JavaScript sandbox without needing a full-fledged operating system. Microsoft's .NET also provides a runtime for implementing server-side web applications in C#, F#, and Visual Basic.

In software development, containerization is becoming increasingly crucial for implementing business logic and ensuring that applications and services are scalable, portable, and efficient. Whether you are using JavaScript containers or Linux containers, it is essential to understand how they work and the pros and cons of each.

Moreover, JavaScript containers have gained support for various programming languages, including Python, Java, TypeScript, and SQL, which has further expanded their use in software development. As the business logic of web apps is becoming more complex, JavaScript containers provide an efficient way to manage dependencies and streamline the software development process. With the rise of serverless computing and cloud services, Docker images have become the standard for packaging and deploying containerized applications, including JavaScript containers. Overall, JavaScript containers are a valuable addition to the containerization ecosystem, giving an alternative to Linux containers for specific use cases.

In conclusion, while JavaScript containers offer many benefits for web services and applications, they are unlikely to overtake Linux containers as the dominant containerization technology soon. Linux containers, particularly Docker containers, are widely used in industry and have a mature ecosystem of tools and support. However, with new developments such as Deno, Rust, and container images, containerization technologies will continue to evolve and improve. As always, staying informed and keeping up with the latest trends and developments is crucial for success in the ever-changing world of containerization.

Will Javascript Containers Overtake Linux Containers?

There’s an image many have of software developers—they sit in a dark room and code endlessly. But unfortunately, more often than not, developers don’t have the leeway to code in an efficient, uninterrupted manner.

Having been a software developer myself, I’ve seen firsthand how most developers’ time is wasted—often due to poor communication from management or inadequate tools.

 conducted by Zenhub, a productivity management tool for software teams, gives further insight into this issue. During January and February 2022, Zenhub surveyed 252 developers. They found that about “half of all developers spent less than 20 hours per week on software dev work” and almost half of them “spend five hours or more in collaboration apps” weekly.

The study also found that while developers typically spend less than 5 hours in meetings per week, those meetings tend to be broken up throughout the day, preventing long periods of focused work.

When developers’ productivity stalls, it slows down businesses, too. Products ship slower, negatively impacting a company’s profits. The good news, though, is that if you’re a corporate leader, you can take several steps to increase the productivity of your developers and in turn, get your product to market faster.

Software engineers are the people at your organization who are coding every day, which means they know exactly where the points of friction are in your product. Just look at what happened in 2021 at Uber, my former employer. As the 

, staff site reliability engineer Cristian Velazquez and his teammates “diagnosed a data processing flaw that could’ve stopped the app from working correctly. Then they developed a way to clear memory more efficiently, saving the company time and money.”

It’s vital to create a culture of open communication where software developers know that executives care about them and their ideas and opinions. One of the best ways to create such a culture is to regularly take the time to sit down with your software developers, either one-on-one or in a group setting ( ideally both), and listen to what they have to say. You’ll get insights that can help you boost productivity on your engineering team, refine your product, address more customer pain points and nip problems in the bud.

You should also remove any bureaucratic communication processes that stifle inter-departmental communication. Your company’s other departments, including product, marketing and sales, would benefit from the input your software engineers provide as well. When information travels the shortest path possible, that’s when the best ideas can form.

In my experience, companies with the most transparency have the most productive software engineering teams.

The reason boils down to microdecisions, which Thomas H. Davenport, the cofounder of the International Institute for Analytics, 

 as “small decisions made many times by many workers at the customer interface.” These microdecisions, according to Davenport, can be “the difference between sloppy and effective execution” and “profit and loss.”

Software developers can make the best microdecisions possible when they’re in a work environment with high transparency. They’ll know exactly what’s at stake and can brainstorm solutions from that baseline knowledge, as opposed to making decisions in the dark.

Give Software Developers Opportunities To Work On What They Want To Work On

Many times, developers notice a problem in a product or realize there’s a better approach but have to prioritize other tasks due to directives from management. Give engineers a week or two to work on what they want to work on, and you’ll find that they will often tackle issues with your product that go beyond the surface.

Facebook, for example, is well-known in the tech world for its hackathons, which have 

 in many updates and new features. However, you don’t necessarily have to host hackathons—you could implement one day a week or every two weeks.

When software engineers have uninterrupted, unstructured time to work alone or collaborate with each other on ideas, they’ll generate solutions that they might not have come up with as quickly or at all if they were sitting at their desks tackling to-do lists during work hours.

Provide Software Engineers With The Tools They Need To Succeed

One of the biggest productivity lags developers face is having to deal with an incomplete production cycle. They code and debug on a local environment, but they are essentially not getting the full picture of what they are developing.

Providing developers with a cloud-based software development environment, like the one my company, DevZero, offers, can significantly boost their productivity by giving them a complete view of how their code will execute in a mirror of their production environment. Of course, various product offerings from AWS, GCP and Azure can be stitched together to provide consistent development environments.

And of course, as a bare minimum, software developers would benefit from a version control system such as GitHub and an integrated development environment (IDE) such as JetBrains.

Avoid Misconceptions About Software Engineers

At the start of this article, I mentioned that there’s a common perception of software engineers coding endlessly in dark rooms. And while some software engineers do prefer that work style, many don’t.

Software engineers, like employees in other departments, join a company to do good work. And a major element of being able to do good work is having opportunities to connect with other people and exchange ideas. As a leader, it’s vital that you encourage people working in different disciplines to interact with each other, so they have a good grasp of what’s going well for the product and company, and what areas need improvement. As a leader, when you set an example by encouraging all team members to interact on a day-to-day basis and after hours during company outings and the like, you’ll set a better stage for software developers to innovate, iterate and create the technology that will carry us into the future.

How Corporate Leaders Can Help Software Developers Reach Their Full Potential

A lot of work happens on Zoom and Slack in companies these days. Working in distributed teams seems almost impossible without tools like these. 

Here are some of my personal tips for Zoom that make everyone's experience a little better:

Use headphones but set zoom to use the headphones as the speaker and your machine's microphone instead. This will effectively boost your audio experience from 11k (phone call) to 44k ('CD') while also avoiding issues with echo prevention (if you use no headphones, zoom doesn't play anyone's voice out of your speakers while you're talking - which creates those 'wait, what did you say?' moments)

Set keyboard shortcuts to 'enable global' for things like mute, video, and screen sharing so you never have to switch windows to speak up or hide a sneeze.

Set your screen sharing to share your full desktop by default (combined with 2, this means you can have a moment like "Oh, I think I know where that thing is, let me just go into Notion... Yeah, I see it - lemme show you" 

 and boom, they see what you see without a bunch of clicking.

Obvious ones: Join audio automatically, mute audio and video when joining, prevent fullscreen when someone shares.

Note re: (1), using newer headphones will get you 22khz duplex over bluetooth; and wired headphones suffer other problem with mics (collars, zippers, and general cord noise). Vishal Pallerla on our team uses an external webcam microphone - that works better for him because he uses monitors and likes to close his laptop all the time.

Everton Moreth and Debo Ray on the team have also adopted these practices and experience a noticeable improvement in team interactions. Give it a shot and if it works for you, share this blog!

Tips for Zoom that make everyone's experience better

Brandon Mensing

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