cid 423373bc6ee96f45540c4bfd2a07c0885b22a387a115af31c7692a9b92e7be51 · original · open access · via openalex
Title: Using DevContainers to Standardize Student Development Environments: An Experience Report Authors: Sander Valstar; William G. Griswold; Leo Porter Venue: ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE) Year: 2020 Canonical: doi:10.1145/3341525.3387424 URL: https://doi.org/10.1145/3341525.3387424 Collector: openalex OA: true ABSTRACT In computer science classes it can be a challenge to ensure every student has a functioning development environment. Running pre-configured servers that provide students with remote access can help mitigate most of these setup issues, however they can also introduce new limitations of their own. We propose using DevContainers to overcome the local machine setup difficulties for the students. DevContainers allow the instructional staff to provision a development environment (a Docker image) with all the correct software versions pre-configured. This development environment can be used on any major OS through Docker. Moreover, through this DevContainer configuration, Microsoft Visual Studio Code can integrate seamlessly with the Docker container to provide an experience for the user that is practically the same as working on the native OS. This work examines the value of employing a DevContainer setup in an Advanced Data Structures course and provides details for those interested in using DevContainers in their courses.