Reading List for 2023

This article was written while listening to SOS - SZA

This is stuff I want to read and re-read over the next year. This is not a recommendation for anyone and I don't expect to read all of it by the end of the year.

Technical Books and Articles

• Designing Data-Intensive Applications

  • No harm in re-reading some of the chapters.

• System Design Interview - An Insider's Guide

  • I bought this while interviewing. The second edition has a lot of good examples of high-level architecture. I also highly recommend chapters 1-5 of the first edition.

• Designing Distributed Systems: Patterns and Paradigms for Scalable, Reliable Services

  • It's free! Also explains a lot of common and useful patterns!

• Distributed Systems for Fun and Profit

  • This looks like a pretty good primer and overview of the problem space. Definitely on my list!

• The Tail at Scale

• MapReduce: Simplified Data Processing on Large Clusters

  • Classic, I need to reread it more in-depth.

• Bigtable: A Distributed Storage System for Structured Data

  • Another classic. You may be able to tell that I like complex distributed storage problems.

• Paxos Made Simple

  • I had the bittersweet pleasure of proving the Paxos protocol using formal methods as a college assignment. It led to a better understanding of the protocol but now my brain identifies it with exam stress.

• Distributed Computing Manifesto

  • A piece of engineering and distributed systems history!

• Scalable Web Architecture and Distributed Systems

• The Log

  • Considering that I work at a company that creates distributed messaging technology, this is a pretty useful thing for me to understand.

• Kafka: a Distributed Messaging System for Log Processing

  • One of the most popular distributed systems technologies on the market today! Also, I guess it's the competitor of NATS?

• Raft Consensus Algorithm

  • The Raft paper got me into this field and was the opening of the rabbit hole that led me to my current role. It is also the underlying consensus protocol for NATS JetStream clustering.

• Effective Java

  • My new role doesn't look like it's going to involve a lot of Java but I only got a quarter of the way through this last year. But I've looked at the table of contents and there seems to be some really cool stuff in here!

• Building a Distributed Postgres P.O.C

  • Yes, I do love me some distributed storage content. This is a great hands-on intro to it.

Engineering and Productivity

• The Unicorn Project and The Phoenix Project

• The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation

• The Unwritten Laws of Engineering

Misc. and Fun

• Incredible History Of India's Geography

• The Chrysalids

• Fooled By Randomness and Skin in the Game

  • I've read The Black Swan and Antifragile, so I only have two more until I finish the Incerto. Bed of Procrustes isn't that much of a priority for me right now.

• The Big Short

• Cryptonomicon

  • This has been on the list for a while.

Special shoutout to https://devblogs.co which is an amazing aggregator for great engineering blogs.