System Design

Understand the Problem: Before diving into design, deeply understand the problem domain, user requirements, and business goals.

Keep it Simple: Aim for the simplest design that addresses current problems2. Avoid over-engineering for hypothetical future needs12. If possible, make the system open-ended without adding significant complexity2. Create a minimal viable product (MVP) early on1.

Prioritize User Needs First: Make user-centered design choices.

Embrace Modularity: Divide complex systems into smaller, manageable components to promote flexibility and ease of maintenance1.

Apply Separation of Concerns (SoC): Segment the system into distinct parts, each handling a specific responsibility. This makes the design clearer, more maintainable, and flexible1. Consider the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern1.

Encapsulation and Abstraction: Use these object-oriented programming concepts to create reliable and maintainable systems1.

Ensure Scalability: Design the system to handle growth in users, data volume, and transaction rates without compromising performance or reliability1. Consider both vertical and horizontal scalability1. Prioritize scalability, organizing components and patterns in a well-thought-out hierarchy4.

Optimize Performance: Focus on how well the system responds to user requests and completes tasks within allotted time, considering throughput, reaction time, and resource usage1. Use effective algorithms, caching, load balancing, and database optimization13.

Maintainability: A system should be easy to operate smoothly, simple for new engineers to understand, and easy to modify for unanticipated use cases6.

Ensure High Availability: Design systems with redundancy, fault tolerance, and failover mechanisms to minimize downtime3.

Implement Fault Tolerance: Build systems that can function well even with errors or malfunctions, using redundancy, replication, and proactive error detection/recovery techniques1.