Ask HN: Anyone who knows where to learn about designing scalable apps from?

3 points by vaibkv 9 years ago | 4 comments

I've been meaning to learn (through hands-on) about designing websites like amazon, etc. So I needed to find a course that taught something like that through exercises (note that I could not find a good book that taught something like this through exercises!). I found MIT OCW's 6.171 ( http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-171-software-engineering-for-web-applications-fall-2003/index.htm ) Has anyone completed this course earlier? How would you rate it? Also, this course is from 2003 so I am not sure would if it would be a good fit in today's times? I'd like to know and I'd very much appreciate the thoughts on this and on how to learn about designing such applications through a hands-on course or book. So, please let me know your thoughts on this, any resources you know about!

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanking in anticipation.

pritambarhate 9 years ago |

http://highscalability.com/blog/category/example

Basically reading how all these scalable systems are built, helped me a lot. Yes they only give you pointers. Then you can research more on those pointers and learn how to actually use these things in your own apps.

vaibkv 9 years ago | |

Yes, thank you for your response. Yes, I know about highscalability.com and such websites but the overview they give is very high level. I am looking to build something similar to the 6.171 MIT course - really hands on and concrete.

herbst 9 years ago |

What are you trying to reach? For something rather general like this i would strongly avoid reading any books older than a few years. 2003 is VERY OLD by it standards.

vaibkv 9 years ago | |

I am trying to reach a point where I can say - "Hey! Look I've designed this highly scalable website" to satiate my own hunger for this knowledge. And I know that one can't possible cover all (and maybe not even a lot) scalability topics while designing such a site but at least it would give me a solid start - something I can build on later on. Yes, I understand 2003 is very old and hence the question - does someone know something similar to MIT 6.171 that's more recent or if that course has been updated. Also, thanks for your reply :)