[addaon]

The value of the journal having history (with comments and timestamps) is huge. I think what I'd prefer to see is having a start sequence of replay journal, build in-memory structure, optionally move old journal to backup name and write out minimal/compressed/comment-and-timestamp-stripped journal to new file. Optionally could be based on size delta; e.g. write if it's less than half the size of the old journal. This keeps journals as append only, while still giving access to full history. It does require some external management to avoid file usage growth even faster than a single journal; but it reduces startup time, and allows a management strategy like just deleting backup files older than a given date (once they're in cold backup, if needed).

[throwup238]

It is very valuable but compaction enables a number of use cases where events are generated in significant quantity or you need to save space, like if you’re implementing event sourcing at thw GUI layer (the event store is basically a journal).

[addaon]

But the event store is also your undo stack, then. Keeping it infinite (or deliberately trimming it at application launch) improves user experience.

[mbreese]

Only for some use cases. I don’t think the parent is arguing for forcing compaction. I’d personally use this with periodic compaction (cronjob), but I can see the utility either way.

[throwup238]

You can selectively compact the journal to only compact the numerous GUI events leaving domain events uncompacted (I do this for a CAD app I develop)