Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann

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Every quote

The 31 most detailed of 39 comments. Each links to the original.

1. There is a whole chapter in Designing Data Intensive Applications dedicated specifically to handling atomic transaction concurrency issues

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2. you can't easily find corresponding material online that provides the same level of depth, structure, and context

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore”

3. It goes into not only different isolation levels, but also some ambiguity in the traditional ACID definition.

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “What Is a Database Transaction?”

4. I studied relational algebra on my own, plus a few chapters from Kleppmann's Data-Intensive Applications book

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5. DDIA has been a book I pull out often when guiding leaders and members of my teams

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “AI tools are making me lose interest in CS fundamentals”

6. I'm just encouraging the devs on my team to read designing data intensive apps

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Don't rent the cloud, own instead”

7. covers exactly the topics you are asking about and references many blog posts

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Ask HN: What are the best engineering blogs with real-world depth?”

8. The first edition was very good, a second one came out recently.

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9. Designing Data Intensive Applications for most company programs

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “How to Not Die by a Thousand Cuts. Or, How to Think About Software Quality”

10. Evergreen computer science topics don't go out of date though.

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Ask HN: If you don't read books, what do you read?”

11. It's my second time and I felt I understand better this time.

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Ask HN: What are you reading?”

12. The best thing young developers can do is read a book like

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13. it is a great intro into real problems and real solutions

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Idempotency keys for exactly-once processing”

14. DDIA is still the first book I tell every junior to read

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Show HN: Books mentioned on Hacker News in 2025”

15. Highly recommend reading Designing Data-Intensive Apps

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Almost Every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret after 4 years”

16. I'm glad I read the "Designing Data Intensive Applications" book because I get the full context of the blog.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “"Design Me a Highly Resilient Database"”

17. considered a useful tome for anyone who needs a insight in the complexity involved in distributed systems

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Distributed Systems Classics (2017)”

18. Martin Klepman's the wild boar book is currently being shown in "Business & Management" category

    Mixed · Nov 2026 · in “Show HN: HackerBooks – HackerTube, but for books mentioned on HN”

19. I have read parts of the Google SRE book and Designing Data Intensive Applications

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “How to Not Die by a Thousand Cuts. Or, How to Think About Software Quality”

20. It will all make a lot more sense why this preserves so many of those ideas.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Litestream VFS”

21. If they're good. I'll pay the 70$ for Designing Data-Intensive Applications.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Books Are Not Remotely Too Expensive”

22. I read designing data intensive applications(DDIA) which was really good

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23. Kleppmann's Designing Data-Intensive Applications if you're going data.

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24. If you are really interested in this subject, you might want to read

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25. If you want a comprehensive resource, I'd recommend reading either

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “B-trees and database indexes (2024)”

26. I love this, let's do all of Data Intensive Application SimCity!

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27. Books that come into my mind that might be useful to you

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28. has some detailed discussions of some of the challenges

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “The Valley of Webhooks”

29. how enjoyable it was after reading AI slop for a year

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “LLM Voice”

30. I've bought books by Kleppmann, Julia Evans

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore”

31. Roller marks, damaged pages, slightly off print.

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “The enshittification of Amazon paperback books”