Even watching how php applications get deployed these days, where it goes through this huge thing and takes about the same amount of time to replace all the docker containers.
I avoid Docker for precisely that reason! I have one system running on Docker across our whole org - Stirling-PDF providing some basic PDF services for internal use. Each time I update it I have to watch it download 700mb of Docker stuff, instead of just doing an in-place upgrade of a few files.
I get that there are advantages in shipping stuff like this. But having seen PHP stuff work for decades with in-place deploys and no build process I am just continually disappointed with how much worse the experience has become.
One approach I've seen rather successfully is to have a container that just contains the files to deploy, and another one for the runtime. You only need to update the runtime container ~ once a week or so (to get OS security updates), and the files container is literally just a COPY command to a volume.
I've only seen that in one place, ever. Most people just do the insane 40 minute docker build -- though I've also seen some that take over 4 hours...
