Running your development environment in a container

Imagine that you only have access to a workstation with Docker Desktop installed, but no possibility to add or change anything else on this workstation. Now you want to do some proofs of concept and code some sample applications using Java. Unfortunately, Java and SpringBoot are not installed on your computer. What can you do? What if you could run a whole development environment inside a container, including a code editor and debugger? What if, at the same time, you could still have your code files on your host machine?

Containers are awesome, and genius engineers have come up with solutions for exactly this kind of problem.

Note

Microsoft and the community are continuously updating VS Code and the plugins. Thus your version of VS Code may be newer than the one used during the writing of this book. As such, expect a slightly different experience. Refer to the official documentation for more details on how to work with Dev...