Please see an adapted version of this article published on Opensource.com here.
In a previous post, I covered an approach for dockerizing a software build system. In this article, I discuss some techniques I've found useful while iterating on a Dockerfile to get it just right. For example, if the Dockerfile involves downloading and installing a 5GB file, each iteration of "docker image build" could take a lot of time even with good network speeds.
Please see the published version of this article on Opensource.com here.
After creating a few build systems using Docker recently, I think I have a decent, repeatable approach that's worth writing down. These build systems were used for generating loadable software images for embedded hardware as well as for compiling machine learning algorithms.
The approach discussed here is about how to create or organize the build system in a way that makes it easy to use and maintain. It's not about the tricks needed to deal with dockerizing any particular software compilers or tools. This approach applies to the common use case of building software by software developers who will be our end users. The build system itself will be abstracted away from our end users so that they can focus on the software.
GitHub Pages can be used to set up your blog for free with a URL like username.github.io (where username is your GitHub username). I had to sort through a few combinations of options with GitHub Pages and Nikola settings. I finally picked one that I found optimal and intuitive.
Here are my notes in case it's useful for anyone else. Even if you don't use the Nikola static site generator, the options discussed here for GitHub Pages might still be useful.