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Distributed Systems

The hard middle of modern engineering - replication, partitioning, and failure.

20 posts · Engineering

  1. 1

    Distributed Systems for Beginners: A Plain-English Map

    A distributed system is many computers pretending to be one. Learn what that means, why it's hard, and the six ideas that make it click for beginners.
  2. 2

    What Is a Distributed System? A Plain-English Guide

    What is a distributed system? Learn how many computers work together to look like one, why we build them, and the core words every developer should know.
  3. 3

    Why Distributed Systems Are Hard (and How to Survive It)

    Why distributed systems are hard: partial failure, unreliable networks, no shared clock, plus the timeouts, retries, and idempotency that save you.
  4. 4

    Why You Can't Trust Clocks to Order Events Across Machines

    Wall-clock timestamps lie across machines. See how Lamport logical clocks and the happens-before relation order events in distributed systems, no shared clock.
  5. 5

    Vector Clocks Explained: How Databases Detect Conflicts

    Learn how vector clocks detect causality and concurrent writes in distributed systems, the trick behind Amazon Dynamo conflict detection and database siblings.
  6. 6

    CAP Theorem Explained (and Why PACELC Matters More)

    A plain-English guide to the CAP theorem and PACELC: what consistency, availability, and partition tolerance really mean, and how to choose CP vs AP databases.
  7. 7

    Consistency Models Explained: From Strong to Eventual

    A plain-English guide to consistency models in distributed systems, from linearizability to eventual consistency, and how to pick the right one per data type.
  8. 8

    Distributed Systems Glossary: 40 Terms, Made Simple

    A plain-English distributed systems glossary covering CAP, consistency, consensus, clocks, and more. Learn the 40 core terms without the academic jargon.
  9. 9

    Distributed Systems FAQ: The Questions Everyone Asks

    Plain-language answers to the distributed systems questions that trip people up: clocks, CAP, consistency, quorums, and why the network keeps lying to you.
  10. 10

    Distributed Systems Cheat Sheet: The Ideas You Actually Need

    A plain-English distributed systems cheat sheet: the 8 fallacies, CAP vs PACELC, logical clocks, and consistency models you can remember under pressure.
  11. 11

    Consensus in Distributed Systems, Explained Simply

    Consensus is how separate computers agree on one decision even when some crash. Here's why it's the hardest problem in distributed systems, in plain English.
  12. 12

    The Consensus Problem: How Machines Agree on One Truth

    The consensus problem is why distributed databases never lose your data. Learn how machines agree on a single value despite crashes, delays, and lost messages.
  13. 13

    Replicated State Machines: The One Idea Behind Raft & Paxos

    Learn how replicated state machines and the log let Raft, Paxos, and etcd keep database copies identical across crashes, lost messages, and no global clock.
  14. 14

    Raft Leader Election Explained: How Servers Pick a Boss

    Learn how Raft leader election works: terms, heartbeats, election timeouts, and majority voting that keep a server cluster agreeing without a single boss.
  15. 15

    How Raft Keeps Every Server in Perfect Sync

    A clear, plain-English guide to Raft log replication, the commit majority rule, the Figure-8 safety bug, cluster membership changes, and snapshotting.
  16. 16

    Paxos Explained Simply: How Machines Agree Under Chaos

    Paxos is the consensus algorithm behind modern distributed systems. Learn how unreliable machines agree on one value, in plain English with clear examples.
  17. 17

    Raft vs Paxos: Which Consensus Algorithm Wins?

    Raft vs Paxos explained in plain language: how Multi-Paxos, Raft, and real systems like etcd and Spanner agree on a replicated log, and when you need it.
  18. 18

    Consensus Algorithms: A Plain-English Glossary

    A plain-English glossary of distributed consensus terms. Understand Raft, Paxos, quorums, terms, leaders, safety, and liveness without the academic jargon.
  19. 19

    Raft vs Paxos and 16 Consensus Questions, Answered Plainly

    Raft vs Paxos, quorums, split-brain, and partitions explained in plain language. The consensus answers engineers actually search for, without the math.
  20. 20

    Consensus, Decoded: Raft & Paxos Without the Pain

    A clear guide to distributed consensus: how Raft and Paxos keep replicas in sync with majority quorums, why you need 3 or 5 nodes, and how to avoid split-brain.