Start From Events

Event Centrism

In Event Centrism, everything we experience is either an event or a trace of one. Reality is not made up of static objects but a continuous flow of occurrences where everything from a falling leaf to a mountain is part of an ongoing process. Even seemingly permanent things are temporary outcomes of past events, always subject to change.

Our lives are driven by events. Every thought, action and emotion is triggered by something and memories are a collection of past events that define who we are. Traces of past events like an old building or a weathered book remind us of what once occurred, continuing to shape the present.

Events can also be potential, waiting to happen, or hidden, unfolding beyond our perception like biological processes or distant cosmic phenomena. Every event is part of a cause-and-effect continuum, influencing future occurrences. Time, in this view, is meaningful only as the medium through which events unfold.

Even the self is an ongoing event, constantly shaped by experiences and interactions. In Event Centrism, everything in life is fluid, dynamic and interconnected, emphasizing that our world and our identities are in constant motion, driven by the events we experience.

Event Centrism is not an absolute truth but rather one way to understand the world, a very useful way to model systems.

Start Modeling From Events

To design reliable scalable systems, we need to start from temporal thinking (the flow of time and how things evolve) and gradually move into spatial thinking (the arrangement of things). In essence, we design spatial systems to handle temporal matters – events.

Services are anchored in space but act in time – At any given moment, a service's location is tied to a physical or virtual environment (e.g. a server, container or cluster). Over time, services evolve as they process events, make decisions and produce outputs.

Events are anchored in time but act in space – Events are fixed to the moment they are created, carrying an immutable snapshot of information. As they traverse the system, they move between services and may also be replicated.

So, instead of focusing too much on the space between services, consider the flow of events and how services evolve over time.

The immutability of events contributes significantly to scalability, particularly in event-driven architectures. Additionally, events play a central role in uncovering domain insights and fostering a shared language. Thus, we adopt an event-centric approach.