If you're anything like me, you've probably scrolled through endless lists of tools and frameworks, wondering, "Do we really need another one?" Well, buckle up, because today I'm kicking off a new blog series where I'm building a change-data-capture (CDC) platform for Oracle databases—right out in the open. Think of it as "build in public" meets "mad scientist in the garage." I'll share the highs, the lows, the "aha!" moments, and probably a few "why did I think this was a good idea?" confessions along the way.
Now, I can already hear the collective groan: "There are so many CDC tools out there already! Some are open-source, and—miracle of miracles—a handful even work as advertised!" Fair point. So why on earth am I adding to the pile? Simple:
"Intellectual curiosity is like an itch that demands to be scratched—until it turns into a full-blown adventure." —Me, channeling my inner philosopher while staring at code at 2 AM.
We've all devoured those shiny system design blogs, binge-watched YouTube tutorials, and powered through online courses that promise to make us architecture wizards. After two decades (give or take) in the software trenches, one universal truth stands out like a sore thumb: There are no perfect systems! Nope, not even close. Even in the fanciest Fortune 500 companies, you'll stumble upon legacy beasts lurking in the shadows—systems that chug along doing things that would make a fresh CS grad weep.
These relics are riddled with anti-patterns that feel like outright betrayals of everything we hold sacred in software engineering. But hey, real life isn't a textbook; it's a chaotic mix of tight deadlines, budget squeezes, and "it worked fine yesterday" logic. And that's exactly why we end up inventing tools that, at first glance, seem redundant. Enter change-data-capture: the unsung hero that whispers, "Hey, something just changed in the database—want to know about it?"
In an ideal world, if you've got a single, well-behaved write service handling all updates to your database, that service should just shout the changes over an enterprise event bus for everyone else to hear. Easy peasy, right? But reality loves to throw curveballs. What if you've got two write services? Or three? Or—heaven forbid—a whole circus of them, some from third-party vendors where you couldn't tweak the code if your life depended on it? Suddenly, you're playing whack-a-mole with codebases, trying to patch in event capture everywhere. It's exhausting, inefficient, and about as fun as debugging someone else's regex.
That's when you pivot to the source of truth: the database itself. Track the changes where they're born, and voila—problem (mostly) solved. But here's the plot twist: many of these legacy setups adore good old relational databases, and Oracle? Oh, Oracle reigns supreme as the king of the RDBMS jungle. It's battle-tested, robust, and... notoriously tricky to wrangle when it comes to CDC. Sure, Oracle offers fancy proprietary solutions like GoldenGate or XStream, but if you're a bootstrapping startup or a solo dev hustling from your home office, those licenses might as well be priced in unicorn tears. Out of reach!
So, what's a curious coder to do? Roll up our sleeves and build an open-source, enterprise-grade, massively scalable CDC platform tailored for Oracle (and hey, if the stars align and I don't run out of coffee, maybe extend it to other databases too). It's a bit like deciding to bake your own bread because the store-bought stuff just doesn't hit the spot—except this bread has to feed a data-hungry army without crumbling under pressure.
In this series, I'll be your guide through the entire journey. We'll dive into design decisions (why this architecture over that one?), framework picks (spoiler: no silver bullets here), library choices (the good, the bad, and the "why did I import that?"), design patterns (because who doesn't love a solid observer or two?), and the inevitable trade-offs—functional feats versus non-functional necessities like scalability, reliability, and that ever-elusive "it just works" magic.
Expect laughs along the way—maybe at my expense when I hit a wall (or a particularly stubborn Oracle quirk). I'll share code snippets, diagrams that look like they were drawn by a caffeinated squirrel, and real talk about what goes wrong (because it will). Who knows? You might even pick up a tip or two for your own projects.
So, grab your favorite beverage, subscribe if you're feeling adventurous, and let's turn this itch into something epic. First up: Scoping out the basics. Stay tuned— we're just getting started!
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