
Ask HN: Anyone who knows where to learn about designing scalable apps from? - vaibkv
I&#x27;ve been meaning to learn (through hands-on) about designing websites like amazon, etc. So I needed to find a course that taught something like that through exercises (note that I could not find a good book that taught something like this through exercises!). I found MIT OCW&#x27;s 6.171  ( http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ocw.mit.edu&#x2F;courses&#x2F;electrical-engineering-and-computer-science&#x2F;6-171-software-engineering-for-web-applications-fall-2003&#x2F;index.htm )  
Has anyone completed this course earlier? How would you rate it? Also, this course is from 2003 so I am not sure would if it would be a good fit in today&#x27;s times?
I&#x27;d like to know and I&#x27;d very much appreciate the thoughts on this and on how to learn about designing such applications through a hands-on course or book. So, please let me know your thoughts on this, any resources you know about!<p>Any help is greatly appreciated.<p>Thanking in anticipation.
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pritambarhate
[http://highscalability.com/blog/category/example](http://highscalability.com/blog/category/example)

Basically reading how all these scalable systems are built, helped me a lot.
Yes they only give you pointers. Then you can research more on those pointers
and learn how to actually use these things in your own apps.

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vaibkv
Yes, thank you for your response. Yes, I know about highscalability.com and
such websites but the overview they give is very high level. I am looking to
build something similar to the 6.171 MIT course - really hands on and
concrete.

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herbst
What are you trying to reach? For something rather general like this i would
strongly avoid reading any books older than a few years. 2003 is VERY OLD by
it standards.

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vaibkv
I am trying to reach a point where I can say - "Hey! Look I've designed this
highly scalable website" to satiate my own hunger for this knowledge. And I
know that one can't possible cover all (and maybe not even a lot) scalability
topics while designing such a site but at least it would give me a solid start
- something I can build on later on. Yes, I understand 2003 is very old and
hence the question - does someone know something similar to MIT 6.171 that's
more recent or if that course has been updated. Also, thanks for your reply :)

