/ɪˈvɛnt ˈsɔːsɪŋ/
Definition
A data storage philosophy in which every action is recorded forever so that future generations can fully understand your mistakes. Often justified with words like “auditability,” “immutability,” and “it seemed cool at the conference.”
Common Manifestations
- Databases containing millions of “UserLoggedIn” events and zero actual insights.
- Architects explaining that “you don’t update state — you replay history.”
- Developers debugging by scrolling through an existential timeline of every bad decision ever committed to Kafka.
- Teams that confuse time travel with progress.
Usage Example
“We don’t store the current balance; we just replay 400,000 events every time someone checks out. That’s Event Sourcing.”
HR Guidance
Event Sourcing builds resilience, traceability, and emotional baggage.
Encourage teams to embrace the philosophy of never forgetting, as it aligns with corporate policy on accountability.
When performance suffers, rebrand latency as “historical depth.”