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Step 1: Scope the problem
You can't design a system if you don't know what you're designing.
First, ask questions to clarify what you need to implement. Then make a list of all major features and use cases that your design must cover.
For example, if you're designing TinyURL, that list might be:
- Shortening a URL to a TinyURL
- Analytics for a URL
- Retrieving original URL from a TinyURL
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There is no "perfect" system
There is no single design for any system that works perfectly. There are always trade-offs. Two different people can come up with different designs, with both being excellent given different assumptions.
Your goal is to:
- Understand the use case
- Scope the ...
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Step 3: Draw the major components
Draw a high-level diagram of what your system looks like:
- Include major components such as servers, databases and important processes
- Describe the flow of your system from end-to-end
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Step 2: Make reasonable assumptions
Depending on the type of system you are designing, you need to estimate its scale: how many users will access it every day, how much data you will store and process, etc.
You should be careful when making assumptions. Incorrect assumptions can dramatically change th...
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Step 4: Identify the key issues
Once you have a basic design in mind, focus on the key issues. Identify the bottlenecks and major challenges of the system, and then adjust your design to handle them.
In the TinyURL example, a challenge you might consider is that some URLs are frequently accessed, whil...
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Alt account of @ocp. I use it to stash ideas about software engineering
📖 Cracking the Coding Interview
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