Ask HN: Recommendations for learning formal distributed systems?
I haven't been able to find a good video lecture series that teaches about formal distributed systems. I don't mind only textual things either. What is good place to start?
http://www.quora.com/Massive-Open-Online-Courses-MOOCs/Is-th...
http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-seminal-papers-in-distribu...
http://www.quora.com/Which-are-the-best-papers-resources-in-...
http://henryr.github.io/distributed-systems-readings/
http://book.mixu.net/distsys/single-page.html
http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs347/reading/textbook.pdf (warning: huge PDF)
http://cactus.eas.asu.edu/PARTHA/Teaching/531-common-files/p...
http://www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/~schmidt/PDF/CSI-article.pdf
http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/aspnes/classes/465/notes.pdf
http://net.pku.edu.cn/~course/cs501/2011/resource/2006-Book-... (warning: huge PDF)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paxos_%28computer_science%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem
Of course, if u are interested for love of knowledge that is another matter.
There are at least two old text books on dist systems. I have both but they are pretty hard to read/abstract. I think the best way to learn is to read academic papers. Read: dynamo, big table, cassandra, some papers on dhts like chord.
I started reading seven dbs in seven week and am really learning a lot. It doesnt focus on dist systems but when you see the different systems in action, you get some useful insights. E.g. Think about how riak id different from redis.
There was some group in new haven that was planning to host a two day seminar on dist systems. If you search old hn submissions, youll find it.(sorry, dont have a link handy as I am on vacay).
The only thing I've read so far is Fowler's "NoSQL Distilled". It's not exactly a hardcore text but it does give a good overview of the different types of databases, and the tradeoffs they make in terms of consistency/availability.