> **Update**: there's now a [companion repo](https://gitlab.com/danielquinn/developing-with-docker-demo) to serve as a demonstration of the below. You'd think that this topic would have been done to …

I’ve been writing code professionally for 24 years, 15 of which has been Python and 9 years of that with Docker. I got tired of running into the same complications every time I started a new job, so I wrote this. Maybe you’ll find it useful, or it could even start a conversation, but this post has been a long time coming.

Update: I had a few requests for a demo repo as a companion to this post, so I wrote one today. It includes a very small Django demo user Docker, Compose, and GitLab CI.