query regarding docker and conda?

[innat]

1. Why pick devel as base image when it looks not necessary and image file would be large? why not pick runtime or base?
2. Instead of conda, what do you think about poetry?

[ashwinvaidya17]

@innat we use devel as it contains build tools needed for pre-commit and tox (and probably package publishing). It is convenient compared to manually adding the required packages and pinning their versions.
The docker file uses conda just of convenience as it is easier to install the right python version and setup the virtual environment. Our setup.py is independent of any virtual environment tools. But we will have a look at poetry.