Microsoft just came up with a surprising new use for Minecraft
Developers love Docker, the superhot software from the $1 billion startup that shares the same name, because it lets them package their code up in a tidy metaphorical box that makes it easier to shunt around and run anywhere.
Today, at a Dockercon event in Barcelona, Microsoft showed off a way to make that metaphor a little more literal with "Dockercraft" - a free download that lets developers manage their Docker containers in "Minecraft," the smash hit game that Microsoft bought for $2.5 billion.
Dockercraft was first showed off at June's Dockercon in San Francisco as a joke, but today Microsoft released it as open source on GitHub - meaning that it's a free download to which any programmer in the world can tweak and improve to their liking.
The video tells the tale:
It's not really practical to run around in Minecraft to manage Docker containers, versus other, more robust tools that are actually, you know, not based on a video game. And you'll need to buy the full $26.99 version of Minecraft for the PC to use Dockercraft.
