It seems that the current architecture of docker-py is to exactly mirror the API of docker, and not add any "helper functions" on top. I totally agree that the docker-py core should mirror the API of docker as closely as possible. However, I keep finding myself re-writing common helpers over and over when integrating docker-py with other code.

Would the maintainers be opposed to adding a helper API on top of the existing core API that adds common operations, such as checking if a container or image exists, converting raw strings into more pythonic types, etc? I'm happy to provide some initial PRs to build a base for this new API if someone gives me a green light