Show HN: Coffer, when Docker is just too much

This is actually pretty cool. To answer a question someone might have about "why not just use docker". Docker comes with its own learning curve and concepts. Sometimes all you want to do when developing is have an environment in which you can't screw your main machine up. Think of virtualenv in python if you've used it. This might be the equivalent of running docker run -it ubuntu:latest /bin/bash and then developing inside that container. But wait! what ports do you open up? What directories do you mount? And then suddenly you are in docker world. It feels like coffer is just a way to say "hey create me a sandbox where I can mess up things minimally no matter what I install and mess around with". Not sure what files get mounted. Shall try it out in a bit and see how it goes.

in what scenario would docker be too much? it's easy to install, easy to run, and highly documented

"Coffer is a platform for creating isolated filesystem containers. It is intended to be used to create isolated development environments without having to worry about doing any network configuration. Applications that are run in Coffer can be accessed outside of a Coffer environment through localhost without having to do anything more than coffer create <name>. This makes it easy to get environments up and running for those of us who do not need network isolation, and only wish to islolate an app and its dependencies."

easily accessed at localhost:8888

mkdir workdir && docker run --name apache -d -p 8080:80 -v `pwd`/workdir:/var/www apache

easily attach

docker exec -it apache bash