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Ideas you will meet

Distributed Systems

Consensus, time, failure and the fundamentals of scale-out.

What we already know about this

Our own lessons on these ideas. Read them here before you start, so it makes sense.

• Software Design Essentials · 9 minCreational patterns: Factory, Builder, SingletonWays to create objects without hard-wiring the exact class: factories, builders, prototypes and why Singleton is usually a last resort.Read hereClose

  The goal

  Creational patterns manage how objects are created, so the rest of the code does not depend on exact classes or messy construction steps.

  Factory Method (and simple factories)

  Callers ask for what they need, and a factory decides which concrete class to create.

  interface Sender { send(to: string, text: string): Promise<void> }
  
  class EmailSender implements Sender { async send(to: string, text: string) { /* ... */ } }
  class SmsSender   implements Sender { async send(to: string, text: string) { /* ... */ } }
  
  function createSender(channel: "email" | "sms"): Sender {
    switch (channel) {
      case "email": return new EmailSender();
      case "sms":   return new SmsSender();
    }
  }
  
  await createSender(user.preferredChannel).send(user.contact, "Your code is 482913");
  

  Benefits: one place to change when classes change, callers depend only on the interface, and tests can supply fakes. A registry (a map from name to constructor) makes adding a type a one-line change.

  Factory Method as a picture

  100%

  Figure SDA-SDE-03-1 · Calling code, factory and products · © forcsguy.com

  Abstract Factory

  Create families of related objects that must be used together, such as a UI toolkit's button, checkbox and menu for one platform or theme.

  interface UiFactory { button(): Button; checkbox(): Checkbox }
  class DarkUi implements UiFactory { /* returns dark variants */ }
  class LightUi implements UiFactory { /* returns light variants */ }
  

  Use it when several products must stay consistent. Skip it when you only vary one object.

  Builder

  Construct a complex object step by step, especially with many optional parts. In languages with named parameters or option objects this is often just that.

  const request = new RequestBuilder("https://api.example.com/orders")
    .method("POST")
    .header("Authorization", token)
    .json({ items })
    .timeout(5000)
    .build();   // validates and returns an immutable Request
  

  Benefits: readable construction, validation in one place, and immutable results. The alternative, a constructor with ten positional parameters, is easy to misuse.

  Prototype

  Create new objects by copying an existing one, useful when creation is expensive or when you want variations of a configured template.

  const base = { retries: 3, timeout: 2000, headers: { accept: "json" } };
  const slow = { ...base, timeout: 10000 };            // shallow copy with a change
  const deep = structuredClone(base);                  // deep copy
  

  Beware shallow versus deep copies: sharing nested objects causes surprising bugs.

  Singleton

  Ensures only one instance exists and gives global access to it.

  class Config {
    private static instance?: Config;
    static get(): Config { return (Config.instance ??= new Config()); }
  }
  

  It looks convenient but has real costs: hidden dependencies, global mutable state, difficulty in testing (state leaks between tests), and trouble with concurrency. Often what you really need is one instance, not global access.

  Better: create the single instance once, in the application's start-up code (the composition root), and inject it into what needs it. You keep "only one" without making it global.

  Choosing

  Situation	Pattern
  Which class to create depends on input or configuration	Factory Method or a registry
  Several related objects must match	Abstract Factory
  Many optional parts, validation needed	Builder or an options object
  Cloning a configured template	Prototype or a copy
  "There should be only one"	Create one in the composition root and inject it

  Prefer the lightest form your language offers: a function that returns an object is often all the "factory" you need.

  Real-world reading

  Related reading

  • Ambry: Distributed Immutable Object Store at LinkedInLinkedIn engineers · LinkedInCase Studies
  • XCMetrics: All-in-One Tool for Tracking Xcode Build Metrics at SpotifySpotify engineers · SpotifyCase Studies
  • Hugging Face BlogHugging Face engineers · Hugging FaceBlogs
  • Design Patterns CatalogueRefactoring GuruDocumentation

  Show 6 moreShow fewer

  • The Twelve-Factor AppAdam Wiggins · 12factor.netDocumentation
  • Scaling Global CDN at Netflix - Dave Temkin, Director of Global Networks at NetflixNetflixYouTube
  • 8 Things You Need to Know Before a System Design InterviewGainlo engineers · GainloBlogs
  • Cloud Object Store at YahooYahoo engineers · YahooCase Studies
  • Dynamometer: Scale Testing HDFS on Minimal Hardware with Maximum Fidelity at LinkedInLinkedIn engineers · LinkedInCase Studies
  • Kakao Blog (Korean)Kakao engineers · KakaoBlogs

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