In response, I decided to quickly toss together a crystal-docker-quickstart repository that provides a barebones environment for letting someone new to Crystal quickly try it, without jumping through any hoops to actually install the compiler locally. If you have Docker installed, this lets you start your own Crystal project quite quickly. It’s based on crystallang/crystal:1.5.0-alpine.
For example, you may do:
git clone https://github.com/compumike/crystal-docker-quickstart.git my_app
cd my_app
./d_dev
# docker container spins up in a few seconds... within the container's bash shell, try:
make spec
make && out/my_app
# outside container, you may edit src/main.cr, save it, and then again within container:
make && out/my_app
Curious to hear what you think. For many, I think this might be an easier new-user “install” process than the current ones described on Install - The Crystal Programming Language