The Learning Continues
3 min readThe gist
- What it is: a reading list of real-world system architectures
- How to use it: study shared principles AND underlying technologies: what problem does each technology solve?
- Start with: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google, Netflix, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, Uber
Designing good systems requires years of knowledge accumulation. One shortcut is to dive into real-world system architectures.
Below is a collection of helpful reading materials. Pay attention to both shared principles and underlying technologies. Researching each technology and understanding what problems it solves is a great way to strengthen your knowledge base and refine the design process.
1 of 3: Real-world systems
2 of 3: How to study
- Pick one company's stack and trace its evolution (start with Facebook or Google: most material)
- For each technology, ask what problem does it solve? Not just what it is
- Note shared principles across companies (caching, sharding, async, redundancy)
- Re-read after finishing a design chapter: the principles will now click
3 of 3: Sources for more
Reference materials (2 links)
[1] High scalability: http://highscalability.com [2] The Architecture of Open Source Applications: http://aosabook.org/en/index.html
Remember: the goal is not reading volume: it's connecting each technology back to a problem you can name.