August 16th, 2024

Are you considering Event Sourcing? Think again

Eduardo Bellani's blog post argues that traditional SQL RDBMS with temporal tables can provide similar benefits to event sourcing, encouraging developers to evaluate existing tools for cost-effective data management.

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Are you considering Event Sourcing? Think again

Eduardo Bellani's blog post discusses the potential drawbacks of adopting event sourcing for software projects, suggesting that traditional SQL relational database management systems (RDBMS) with temporal tables may offer similar benefits at a lower cost. He argues that many developers may overlook the capabilities of their existing SQL databases, which can provide features like auditing, error recovery, and trend analysis through temporal queries. These features allow for an immutable audit trail and the ability to reconstruct data without the complexities associated with event sourcing. The post highlights the advantages of using temporal tables, such as maintaining a linear programming style while still benefiting from the advantages of event sourcing. Bellani encourages developers to reconsider their approach and explore the capabilities of their current tools before committing to event sourcing.

- Event sourcing may not be necessary for all projects.

- SQL RDBMS with temporal tables can provide similar benefits to event sourcing.

- Temporal tables offer features like auditing and error recovery.

- Developers should evaluate existing tools before adopting new methodologies.

- The post promotes a more cost-effective approach to data management.

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By @tokyolights2 - 8 months
Event sourcing is a pattern (antipatern?) that appears useful because it solves an interpersonal problem. It is the kind of thing that middle management salivates over because it appears to decentralize control, which to such a manager sounds like "gives me more control of my own sphere". Every team creates their own event schemas and subscribes to other teams' events and we all live happily ever after. Never again will we have to wait on some other team to spin up an API for us! It promises an engineering solution to engineering itself.

I could write and write and write about it, but this rather infamous blog post is so good I'll just link it. https://chriskiehl.com/article/event-sourcing-is-hard