Martin Kleppmann is a researcher in distributed systems at the University of Cam‐ bridge, UK. Previously he was a software engineer and entrepreneur at internet com‐ panies including LinkedIn and Rapportive, where he worked on large-scale data infrastructure. In the process he learned a few things the hard way, and he hopes this book will save you from repeating the same mistakes.
Martin is a regular conference speaker, blogger, and open source contributor. He believes that profound technical ideas should be accessible to everyone, and that deeper understanding will help us develop better software.
The animal on the cover of Designing Data-Intensive Applications is an Indian wild boar (Sus scrofa cristatus), a subspecies of wild boar found in India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. They are distinctive from European boars in that they have higher back bristles, no woolly undercoat, and a larger, straighter skull.
The Indian wild boar has a coat of gray or black hair, with stiff bristles running along the spine. Males have protruding canine teeth (called tushes) that are used to fight with rivals or fend off predators. Males are larger than females, but the species aver‐ ages 33–35 inches tall at the shoulder and 200–300 pounds in weight. Their natural predators include bears, tigers, and various big cats.
These animals are nocturnal and omnivorous—they eat a wide variety of things, including roots, insects, carrion, nuts, berries, and small animals. Wild boars are also known to root through garbage and crop fields, causing a great deal of destruction and earning the enmity of farmers. They need to eat 4,000–4,500 calories a day. Boars have a well-developed sense of smell, which helps them forage for underground plant material and burrowing animals. However, their eyesight is poor.
Wild boars have long held significance in human culture. In Hindu lore, the boar is an avatar of the god Vishnu. In ancient Greek funerary monuments, it was a symbol of a gallant loser (in contrast to the victorious lion). Due to its aggression, it was depicted on the armor and weapons of Scandinavian, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon warriors. In the Chinese zodiac, it symbolizes determination and impetuosity.
Many of the animals on O’Reilly covers are endangered; all of them are important to the world. To learn more about how you can help, go to animals.oreilly.com.
The cover image is from Shaw’s Zoology. The cover fonts are URW Typewriter and Guardian Sans. The text font is Adobe Minion Pro; the font in diagrams is Adobe Myriad Pro; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Dal‐ ton Maag’s Ubuntu Mono.