How much experience do you have with Axon Framework 4 and earlier?
I am the expert in my team
Feel free to elaborate if you’d like: I am in charge of key architecture decisions, including and not limited to how our app deals with various event sourced system PROs/CONs. I also train all the new employees that I hire in my company to get familiar with Axon and the Event Driven world.
How would you rate your Event-Sourcing knowledge?
Advanced
Feel free to elaborate if you’d like: I am sure others will claim that I am at expert level, but I am confident I still have gaps to fill in more complex scenarios.
How would you rate the overall experience of using Axon Framework 5?
4: Good
What did you like most about Axon Framework 5?
Dynamic consistency boundary
The new Given-When-Then test fixtures
Feel free to elaborate if you’d like: The problems with explaining aggregates to devs and business people has always been a thorn in my side. Now I can finally just concentrate on the key, which is events that happen in the business.
Do you think Axon Framework 5 improves the developer experience compared to Axon Framework 4?
Maybe
Feel free to elaborate if you’d like: The config is too complicated atm
How long did it take you to get started with Axon Framework 5?
2-4 hours
Feel free to elaborate if you’d like: The new config is quite complex compared to the plug and play experience I was used to in Spring Boot apps and Axon 4
How intuitive did you find the new configuration system?
Somewhat intuitive
Feel free to elaborate if you’d like: Spring Boot starters always worked fine for me. This new juggling of configuration files and classes feels like a step backward.
Did you try out the new dynamic consistency boundary feature? If so, how would you rate it?
Yes, I loved it!
Feel free to elaborate if you’d like: I was never a fan of the Aggregate. It added friction in modeling the system with all parties. Now devs are forced to construct the state from events, and I no longer need to explain to business people that “Event A is tied to Event B via the tech, but not via the business need”
Did you construct custom EventCriteria? If so, did you find it intuitive?
Yes, but it was a bit tricky
Feel free to elaborate if you’d like: I’m confident that it will become more intuitive with time. With the new DCB world this will be a vital tool to learn and understand.
Would you consider using Axon Framework 5 in a production project once it reaches a stable release?
Yes, definitely
Feel free to elaborate if you’d like: I am Right Now eagerly waiting for Axon 5 to come out so that I can start building a real app with it. One of my new greenfield projects is paused, cause we do not want to waste time with Axon 4, knowing that Axon 5 is right around the corner which would give us a migration chore.
Do you have any suggestions to improve the new features in Axon Framework 5?
Yes — please describe: Make Spring Boot auto config as seamless as possible. The new config file juggling feels like a regression. I see that the latest milestones were supposed to have Spring auto config improvements, but since they are not in the Getting Started Guide, I assume they are not ready to work. If they are ready to work then they should be easy to find in the docs. While I do not have stats to back up what I am about to say - I am fairly confident when I say that Spring Boot is the current meta and it is what the vast majority of the JVM dev world uses.
Do you have any additional feedback or comments that weren’t included in the other questions?
Comment 1: I loved the talks done online about Killing The Aggregate. They helped a lot in convincing both myself and stakeholders that this new change is worth it.
How would you like to be mentioned in the README file?