Automating creation of multiple simultaneous software development environments on a computer system

A non-transitory tangible computer readable storage medium having stored thereon a computer program for automating creation of multiple simultaneous software development environments on a single physical development machine, each development environment including a respective version of a software application to be developed and a respective supporting technology stack including a respective version of one or more supporting software applications, the computer program including a set of instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method comprising the steps of:

• using automation code to automatically create a respective container on the development machine for each of the multiple simultaneous software development environments, each container being implemented as a discrete environment set up within an operating system of the development machine, each container including the respective version of the software application to be developed and the respective supporting technology stack including the respective version of the one or more supporting software applications:
• wherein using the automation code to automatically create each of the respective containers comprises, for each respective container:
• reading a text file describing the development environment to be created, the text file identifying respective version of the one or more supporting software applications to be used to implement the development environment;
• locating and downloading the respective version of the one or more supporting software applications identified in the text file and required to be included in the development environment;
• determining a first set of one or more ports used to access the supporting software applications within the development environment at the development machine level;
• identifying a second set of ports on the development machine;
• correlating the second set of ports on the development machine with the first set of one or more ports used to access the supporting software applications within the development environment at the development machine level;
• modifying a set of configuration files associated with the supporting software applications based on the correlation between the second set of ports and first set of one or more ports;
• building a container containing the respective version of the software application to be developed and the respective supporting technology stack including the respective version of one or more supporting software applications to create the development environment;
• and
• binding the second set of ports to the created container.