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Derek Comartin

Stale Data Is More Than an Eventual Consistency Problem

The moment you retrieve data, it’s potentially already stale. And I’m not talking about eventual consistency or reading from a cache, which is what people typically think of when they think of stale data. No, I’m talking about your primary database. YouTube Check out my YouTube channel, where I post all kinds of content on Software Architecture & Design, including this video showing everything in this post. Developers often make the assumption that we can just query the database, get some data back, and return it to the client. Maybe we’re showing something in a UI where the end user can make… Read More »Stale Data Is More Than an Eventual Consistency Problem

Why Database Generated IDs Can Complicate Your System Design

When you’re creating something in your system, where does the ID come from? For most, it’s probably the database. Database generated IDs are pretty straightforward, and you’re probably used to them if you’ve done a lot of CRUD. But why is your database responsible for generating the ID? This seemingly simple decision can have a pretty big impact on your overall system design when you start thinking about asynchronous processing, messaging, and different boundaries. YouTube Check out my YouTube channel, where I post all kinds of content on Software Architecture & Design, including this video showing everything in this post. You have… Read More »Why Database Generated IDs Can Complicate Your System Design

5 Event Driven Architecture Problems (And How to Avoid Them)

“We switched to event driven architecture. Now we can’t debug anything.” A member of my channel shared a post with me where a team went all in on event driven architecture and ran into a bunch of problems. The thing is, they’re not wrong about the pain they experienced. But the problems weren’t directly because of event driven architecture. They were mostly caused by how they understood it and how they were applying it. So let’s break down the five pain points they had, why they had that pain, and how you can avoid it. YouTube Check out my YouTube channel, where… Read More »5 Event Driven Architecture Problems (And How to Avoid Them)