I recently gave a talk to the local Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee Linux User Group describing some similarities between Docker and Ansible.

Both give you a repeatable configuration by executing some sort of script of actions. Here is a link to the slides I used for the talk. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1W_vEPSZ-rhareK5q56pd10m2Y7JT2mc-LxrHAE6yaSI/edit#slide=id.g14247b9f80b_2_75

Update: March 2023 – I recently learned about Dev Containers that provide the ability to bundle up all the tools required for a development environment. The PRQL project is using it to set up a complicated Rust/Javascript/Hugo/mdbook/Python environment.