Docker for Novices: The Resource That 16 Lists Can't Be Wrong About

We're kicking off the Awesome Curated: The Tools series with something that, on paper, shouldn't survive any filter: a 2019 YouTube video, with no specific ID in the URL, about a topic that has thousands of newer tutorials. And yet here it is, in the very first post, because 16 independent communities decided it was worth linking to.

That doesn't happen by accident.

The actual problem

You got handed a project that uses Docker. Or your team migrated everything to containers and you're still running stuff directly on your machine. Or you just want to understand what people mean when they say "dockerize it" in standup.

The problem isn't that there are no resources. It's that there are way too many — and most of them are 10-minute tutorials that show you how to run docker run hello-world and then shove you off a cliff. If you've never touched containers, what you need isn't speed. It's structure. Someone who explains why Docker exists before showing you how to use it.

What it actually is

Docker for Novices is a talk recorded at linux.conf.au 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand. Alex Clews gives it, it runs 1 hour 40 minutes, and it's built for developers and testers who have never touched containers.

The recorded-conference format has something that edited tutorials don't: organicity. The audience questions, the moments where something breaks live, the digressions that turn out to actually matter — all of that is in there. It feels more like a colleague explaining something to you than following a step-by-step guide.

The content covers Docker from scratch. It doesn't assume any prior knowledge of containers, virtualization, or Linux beyond the basics. The fact that it's shown up in DevOps lists, Linux lists, and testing resource lists suggests the scope is genuinely broad — this isn't aimed at one specific niche.

One honest warning: the URL circulating in the awesome lists is generic (youtube.com/watch with no video ID). That makes it impossible to verify current availability without hunting the video down yourself. Search "Docker for Novices Alex Clews linux.conf.au 2019" on YouTube — the official linux.conf.au channel tends to keep its videos archived.

Why it's on the list

Our curation system combines community signal with AI analysis and a human verdict. The AI flagged this resource as WORTH_TRYING with reservations about the date. I marked it GEM. The difference comes down to understanding what you're actually evaluating.

You're not evaluating whether Docker's syntax changed since 2019 (it did — some flags are different). You're evaluating whether someone who has never used containers is going to understand what problem they solve and how to think about them. That doesn't expire. The concept of image vs. container, the reason layers exist, the difference between Docker and a VM — none of that has changed.

Sixteen independent lists is a consensus signal that very few resources ever achieve. It's not that one large community put it on their official list. It's sixteen different teams, with different criteria, arriving at the same conclusion. For an introductory resource recorded at a regional conference, that's noise turning into signal.

More up-to-date alternatives exist — Docker's official docs have gotten a lot better, Play with Docker has interactive environments, and there are full courses on Udemy and Coursera. But none of those have 16 organic endorsements from completely separate technical communities.

When NOT to use it

If you already know what an image is, what a container is, and you can write a Dockerfile without looking at the docs — this resource is not for you. It's explicitly for novices. The title doesn't lie.

Don't use it as a reference for Docker Compose, Swarm, Kubernetes, or anything orchestration-related either. There are more current, specific resources for that. And as I mentioned — verify the video is still available before sending it to someone. The generic URL is the only real friction point this resource has.

Wrapping up

This is the first post in Awesome Curated: The Tools, the series where we dig deep into the tools that pass through our curation system. Not everything that shows up here is software — sometimes it's a video, a paper, a guide. What matters is that it cleared the bar: community signal, automated analysis, and human judgment.

If you want to see the rest of the tools that have been making the cut, the full series lives at /blog/series/awesome-curated-tools. Every post follows the same format: no gratuitous hype, honest limitations, and context for why something that looks minor is sometimes exactly what you need.