Cargo-Cult Containerization: A Critical View of Containers in Modern Software Development

Abstract

Software is increasingly developed and deployed using containers. While the concept of a container is conceptually straightforward, there are various issues to be considered while using them, ranging from technical details inside containers to the orchestration of containers that jointly form a meaningful application. In recent years, the use of containers has become so prevalent that developers have a tendency to resort to cargo-cult containerization - ritual adherence to the use of containers just because so many others are doing the same thing. In this paper, we study advantages and downsides of containers in modern-day software development. We foresee the use of containers to spread into new areas, including IoT systems and embedded devices. At the same time, we caution against indiscriminate use of containers, since excessive containerization can have adverse impacts on software maintenance and overall complexity of a system architecture.