4 ms·

Does anyone know of a good distributed systems resource? It's one of the rare areas of CS I have a lot of trouble finding good tutorials and textbooks. Is it ju

Does anyone know of a good distributed systems resource? It's one of the rare areas of CS I have a lot of trouble finding good tutorials and textbooks. Is it just something you pick up with pure practice?

Denzel 6y ago
https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/ https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/ is a good start.
- enitihas 6y ago
  Does the link have any content? I don't find anything.
  - alexeldeib 6y ago
    Click the schedule on the left navbar for lecture links. Lab links are there too.
    - enitihas 6y ago
      Thanks, didn't notice that at first.
- taude 6y ago
  It's pretty amazing how quick the industry has changed, and the course content has followed along with this. That's a lot of variety of content for 21 lectures. Would love to see a formalized online version of some of this stuff, for even an overview, high-level. Most of the stuff I find is pretty specific for a particular cloud-native environment.
- taude 6y ago
  I also noticed that the lectures are on YouTube[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQP8WApzIQQ&list=PLrw6a1wE39_tb2fErI4-WkMbsvGQk9_UB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQP8WApzIQQ&list=PLrw6a1wE39...
ahelwer 6y ago
IMO if you develop a good understanding of Paxos then learn TLA+ you'll know everything you need to work on production distributed systems. Learn about CRDTs too, just to see what eventually-consistent systems look like. The real core of distributed systems is less knowing specific algorithms and more knowing what makes the field so hard, what solutions are possible, and the limitations of those solutions. For learning Paxos I like this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsBg0AO6o https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsBg0AO6o Implement it yourself in your language of choice. For TLA+ there's the Practical TLA+ textbook or Leslie Lamport's video lecture series: https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/video/videos.html https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/video/videos.html
yuliyp 6y ago
Check out https://www.cs.rice.edu/~alc/comp520/schedule.html https://www.cs.rice.edu/~alc/comp520/schedule.html . That set of papers (most of which are not too hard to understand; and most of the interesting discussion is not so theoretical, but rather logical) is an excellent guide to thinking about distributed systems.

Denzel 6y ago

https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/ https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/ is a good start.

enitihas 6y ago
Does the link have any content? I don't find anything.
- alexeldeib 6y ago
  Click the schedule on the left navbar for lecture links. Lab links are there too.
  - enitihas 6y ago
    Thanks, didn't notice that at first.
taude 6y ago
It's pretty amazing how quick the industry has changed, and the course content has followed along with this. That's a lot of variety of content for 21 lectures. Would love to see a formalized online version of some of this stuff, for even an overview, high-level. Most of the stuff I find is pretty specific for a particular cloud-native environment.
taude 6y ago
I also noticed that the lectures are on YouTube[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQP8WApzIQQ&list=PLrw6a1wE39_tb2fErI4-WkMbsvGQk9_UB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQP8WApzIQQ&list=PLrw6a1wE39...

ahelwer 6y ago

IMO if you develop a good understanding of Paxos then learn TLA+ you'll know everything you need to work on production distributed systems. Learn about CRDTs too, just to see what eventually-consistent systems look like. The real core of distributed systems is less knowing specific algorithms and more knowing what makes the field so hard, what solutions are possible, and the limitations of those solutions. For learning Paxos I like this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsBg0AO6o https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsBg0AO6o Implement it yourself in your language of choice. For TLA+ there's the Practical TLA+ textbook or Leslie Lamport's video lecture series: https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/video/videos.html https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/video/videos.html

yuliyp 6y ago

Check out https://www.cs.rice.edu/~alc/comp520/schedule.html https://www.cs.rice.edu/~alc/comp520/schedule.html . That set of papers (most of which are not too hard to understand; and most of the interesting discussion is not so theoretical, but rather logical) is an excellent guide to thinking about distributed systems.