The author compares docker-based deploys to deploying straight on top of the OS. And looks at it from a "application programming" perspective.

I argue docker-based deploys should not be looked at from a "application programming" perspective, but from a "dev ops" perspective. It is docker vs puppet/ansible. Not docker vs akka.

To me docker is a big step fwd from provisioning OSes with puppet/ansible and deploying apps on top. I have a deployable unit that is accepted in many envs (k8s, aws ecs, roll-your-own), I keep more of the app-specfic code in the app's source code repo (instead of having some of it in puppet/ansible scripts), and we can use the same system locally (on our laptops) for development. And finally the configuration-by-env-vars convention creates a lot of clarity.