Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers SE Radio 654: Chris Patterson on MassTransit and Event-Driven Systems
18 snips
Feb 4, 2025 
Chris Patterson, founder of MassTransit and an expert in distributed systems, shares insights on embracing event-driven programming in .NET. He dives into the nuances of message buses and brokers, explaining durable messaging and decoupled architecture for scalability and reliability. Chris tackles real-world challenges, including leadership hesitancy and the balance between innovation and practicality. He also discusses advanced patterns like sagas and outbox transactions, emphasizing the need for observability with tools like OpenTelemetry. Tune in for a wealth of valuable knowledge!
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Decouple With Durable Eventing
- Message buses let systems emit durable events so follow-on processes run asynchronously and independently.
- This decoupling makes it easy to add features without modifying the original transaction script.
Weigh Distribution Tradeoffs
- Avoid distributing functionality unless you need to; distribution increases complexity and operational problems.
- Evaluate trade-offs: use async messaging when decoupling or durability outweighs added complexity.
Broker Versus Stream
- Kafka is a partitioned append-only log for event streaming and replay, not a broker-style queue with locks.
- Use brokers for queue-based dispatch and load-balanced consumers; use Kafka when log semantics and replay are primary.
