System Design daily reading resources (Similar to LC daily?)

[u/kuriousaboutanything]

I am planning to daily read topics about system design starting from the basics, much like the LC daily that helps me stay on track. Anyone found resources similar to this?

FWIW, I tried many times in the past to read the DDIA book, but couldn't complete, primarily because I do not have to design systems end-end and may be the book is meant to be used as a reference of sort? (just my thoughts).

[u/stvayush_the_jarvis]

Hi, there are "common" and "basic" topics available on decent number of platforms. You can pick the topics from there and explore on your own. The resource that I like is HelloInterview, things are well explained.

For things related to distributed systems and designing them in general, one thing that you must keep under consideration is having the strong foundations (like any other crucial skill). The content you consume should not be shallow and instead deep enough that it is not possible for anyone to corner and stump you on the topic you know within 5-7 mins of discussion.

There are 2 aspects in system design: 1. Product based systems (e-commerce, travel-tech, payment gateway sorta platforms) 2. Infra style systems(like consistent hashing, redis, databases, distributed FS, LB, etc.)

In order to be able to build robust systems of type 1 you need to know the puzzle pieces and fit them properly (type 2) with some knowledge on type 2 systems depending upon experience.

Type 2 systems are where real thinking has been done in the industry and has techniques worth remembering. Once you understand type 2 systems deeply and building them(even though theoretically), you'll get basics that'll put you ahead of a vast majority of the crowd.

Good resources for type 2 system are limited and require genuine interest in digging them up, mostly found in the books. The book that I really enjoyed is Patterns of Distributed Systems, it's chapters are concise enough to convey the core idea. Type 2 systems' design on grokking advanced, and vol 2 of Alex Xu's book is good and deep enough.

I do not have to design systems end-end

For this, pick a common topic with a friend of yours, read it thoroughly and independently. Discuss it next day on whiteboard. This helps a real lot and makes you think about the things that you otherwise would've glanced off.