I use always docker for my development workflow, no matter what programming language

So in my opinion it’s a must have, because I can literally combine any version of Erlang/Elixir/Phoenix/NodeJs/Postgres/LinuxFlavour and throw them away in the blink of an eye without messing with my Operating System.

An example of my elixir-docker-stack-defaults on the project I am working on this moment:

EDS_STACK_NAME=phoenix
EDS_STACK_BUILD_SOURCE=git
EDS_APP_IP=127.0.0.1
EDS_APP_HTTP_PORT=4000
EDS_CONTAINER_HTTP_PORT=4000
EDS_APP_HTTPS_PORT=4001
EDS_CONTAINER_HTTPS_PORT=4001
EDS_OS_NAME=debian
EDS_OS_VERSION=stretch
EDS_ERLANG_OTP_VERSION=22.2.1
EDS_ELIXIR_VERSION=1.9.4
EDS_PHOENIX_VERSION=1.4.11
EDS_PHOENIX_COMMAND=phx.server
EDS_DATABASE_IMAGE=postgres:11-alpine
EDS_DATABASE_USER=postgres
EDS_DATABASE_COMMAND=postgres

Yes I know you have other tools, but they mess with the Operating System. My approach of using Docker keeps my OS in a pristine state

That really doesn’t matter, it’s very easy to add docker later

Or you can realise that you do not need Docker at all