Recording my "Designing Data Intensive Applications" read through
For a while now, I've been trying to read through "Designing Data Intensive Applications, 1st Edition" (DDIA for short) by Martin Kleppmann in an attempt to become more familiar with distributed systems and maybe have a better time with system design interviews, though that's more of a secondary benefit. I'm mostly just interested in the topic and really don't see much of a way to get actual experience with distributed systems stuff outside of directly working on one (probably unlikely in the short term). For a little background, I've been a software developer for around three years, mainly doing front end work with React and its various frameworks with a smattering of back end api work.
Getting back to the book, I think I first tried reading it in 2023 and got to maybe the sixth or seventh chapter. As I am prone to doing, I eventually bounced off of it for whatever reason. Coming back to the book in late 2025, I tried skimming the chapter that I think I left off on and didn't really understand much of it. I decided to re-read from the beginning to refresh my memory and maybe pick up on some things I may have missed my first read through.
This re-read has also coincided with wanting to start blogging, so it seemed natural to kick off the posts with trying to record what I learn this time. Unfortunately, I've been doing my re-read for a few months now but only started blogging in January 2026 so the beginning of the book isn't so fresh in my mind at the moment. I guess this is just a good reason to review earlier chapters.