ENH: Create DockerFile and devcontainer.json files to work with Docker and VS Code in Containers

.devcontainer.json

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+// For format details, see https://aka.ms/vscode-remote/devcontainer.json or the definition README at
+// https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-dev-containers/tree/master/containers/python-3-miniconda
+{
+	"name": "Pandas",
+	"context": ".",
+	"dockerFile": "Dockerfile",
+
+	// Use 'settings' to set *default* container specific settings.json values on container create.
+	// You can edit these settings after create using File > Preferences > Settings > Remote.
+	"settings": {
+		"terminal.integrated.shell.linux": "/bin/bash",
+		"python.condaPath": "/opt/conda/bin/conda",
+		"python.pythonPath": "/opt/conda/bin/python",
+		"python.formatting.provider": "black",
+		"python.linting.enabled": true,
+		"python.linting.flake8Enabled": true,
+		"python.linting.pylintEnabled": false,
+		"python.linting.mypyEnabled": true,
+		"python.testing.pytestEnabled": true
+	},
+
+	// Add the IDs of extensions you want installed when the container is created in the array below.
+	"extensions": [
+		"ms-python.python",
+		"ms-vscode.cpptools"
+	]
+}

Dockerfile

@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+FROM continuumio/miniconda3
+
+# if you forked pandas, you can pass in your own GitHub username to use your fork
+# i.e. gh_username=myname
+ARG gh_username=pandas-dev
+ARG pandas_home="/home/pandas"
+
+# Avoid warnings by switching to noninteractive
+ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
+
+# Configure apt and install packages
+RUN apt-get update \
+    && apt-get -y install --no-install-recommends apt-utils dialog 2>&1 \
+    #
+    # Verify git, process tools, lsb-release (common in install instructions for CLIs) installed
+    && apt-get -y install git iproute2 procps iproute2 lsb-release \
+    #
+    # Install C compilers (gcc not enough, so just went with build-essential which admittedly might be overkill),
+    # needed to build pandas C extensions
+    && apt-get -y install build-essential \
+    #
+    # cleanup
+    && apt-get autoremove -y \
+    && apt-get clean -y \
+    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
+
+# Switch back to dialog for any ad-hoc use of apt-get
+ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=dialog
+
+# Clone pandas repo
+RUN mkdir "$pandas_home" \
+    && git clone "https://github.com/$gh_username/pandas.git" "$pandas_home" \
+    && cd "$pandas_home" \
+    && git remote add upstream "https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas.git"
+
+# Because it is surprisingly difficult to activate a conda environment inside a DockerFile
+# (from personal experience and per https://github.com/ContinuumIO/docker-images/issues/89),
+# we just update the base/root one from the 'environment.yml' file instead of creating a new one.
+#
+# Set up environment
+RUN conda env update -n base -f "$pandas_home/environment.yml"
+
+# Build C extensions and pandas
+RUN cd "$pandas_home" \
+    && python setup.py build_ext --inplace -j 4 \
+    && python -m pip install -e .

doc/source/development/contributing.rst

@@ -146,6 +146,17 @@ requires a C compiler and Python environment. If you're making documentation
 changes, you can skip to :ref:`contributing.documentation` but you won't be able
 to build the documentation locally before pushing your changes.
 
+Using a Docker Container
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Instead of manually setting up a development environment, you can use Docker to
+automatically create the environment with just several commands. Pandas provides a `DockerFile`
+in the root directory to build a Docker image with a full pandas development environment.
+
+Even easier, you can use the DockerFile to launch a remote session with Visual Studio Code,
+a popular free IDE, using the `.devcontainer.json` file.
+See https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/containers for details.
+
 .. _contributing.dev_c:
 
 Installing a C compiler