So I finally (what, a decade behind popular trends??) am having reason to experiment with actual use of Docker in production, and…I’m surprised at how disappointing it is.

The configuration is clumsy, a dangerous mix of boilerplate and footgun customization points. The dockerfile / compose division of labor is nonsensical; it apparently grew by accretion instead of design. There are lots of loose ends left for hosting services to tie up, and the product thus fails in what would seem to be a primary goal of avoiding hosting vendor lock-in.

Am I simply Not Getting It Yet™, or is the state of the art actually like this?