Kia’s Blog

In the early days of software development, many teams measured the health of their applications through a single lens: logs that printed cryptic messages whenever something went wrong (or occasionally when something went right). Over time, as systems grew more complex and needs broadened, engineers embraced additional approaches, like metrics that could highlight performance trends and spikes. Eventually, logs and metrics alone were no longer enough. Distributed systems, microservices, containers, and orchestrators demanded a whole new way of understanding application behavior....

The day I first heard about event-driven architectures, I imagined a busy marketplace where each stall (service) would broadcast its daily specials (events), waiting for eager passersby (consumers) to snap up the deals. Over time, that humble metaphor soon expanded into real-world engineering decisions: do I rely on a queue-based system like RabbitMQ, or do I step into the realm of event logs with Kafka? Let’s explore these two messaging heavyweights and see why choosing between them often comes down to more than just performance metrics....

TL;DR Embark on a narrative journey through distributed systems to uncover the subtle differences between messages, commands, and events. Discover how these concepts weave into the fabric of microservices architecture, illustrated through a real-world e-commerce story. Learn to make strategic decisions for your projects without getting lost in technical issues. Introduction Imagine a robust marketplace where merchants, couriers, and town criers all play pivotal roles in keeping the economy alive. In this scenario, communication is key....

Preface A friend of mine recently asked for my consultation on creating a roadmap for them on how to contribute to a big open-source project like the Linux kernel. I took the chance and tried drafting a simple blog post of what I thought would be a good general guideline to approach such a task. Contributing to the Linux kernel can feel like an overwhelming challenge. After all, it’s one of the most complex and influential pieces of software in existence, powering everything from smartphones to supercomputers....

Introduction In the ever-evolving landscape of software development, tracking changes to data is a fundamental requirement. Whether for auditing, debugging, compliance, or analytics, maintaining a history of changes enhances transparency and accountability within a system. Two prevalent approaches to capturing these changes are storing a change log and using event sourcing. While they share common goals, they differ significantly in implementation and suitability depending on the system’s needs. This blog post delves into the similarities and differences between change logs and event sourcing, assesses their applicability through practical examples, and provides guidance on choosing the right approach for your system....