Desenvolvimento de Aplicações Distribuídas

Classes:

Prof Luis is very energetic and teaches really well. He is very engaging and does a great job at explaining complex concepts, making sure that everything is clear to the students before moving on.

Practical classes were either for paper presentations where groups presented some papers on real-world research in distributed systems, or for project support

Project:

The project was a bit challenging, but very rewarding. It really forced you to think about all types of different scenarios in a distributed system which help deepen our understanding of the course material....

Project: The project is OK. It's not a really difficult project but I didn't learn much from it to be honest. It is all about paxos and multi-paxos.

Exam: I would say that the exam is relatively easy. We got a file with ~70 exercises that are really accurate to the exame ones, making it really nice to study from it because you know you'll apply that knowledge and the they follow the same structure as the exam. You'll learn about paxos, multi-paxos, raft, P2P, etc. The contents are interesting even for someone who isn't planning to follow the Distributed-Systems area.

Overall: I didn't really...

This is a quintessential course for anyone interested/passionate about Distributed Systems, and I strongly recommend it.

The evaluation consists of three components:

1. Project(Java, gRPC) – Very accessible and aligned with the material taught in the theoretical classes. However, you’ll need to study some algorithms beforehand to prepare for the implementation phase.

2. Presentations – Each student presents a relevant scientific paper. This part is more interesting that it might look at first; all papers are connected, allowing you to learn from the other presentations...

This course is a MUST-HAVE for any DS students. Content is very insightful, and the workload is heavy, but manageable within a consistent group.

• Theory classes are taught so that students don't miss them, mainly because the other sources of information are papers.
• The exam isn't difficult - very direct questions.
• Prof. Luís Rodrigues is a great teacher (also the only teacher for this course) and may seem very disconnected (omissions and minor bugs) sometimes, but he is a great tutor and very fond of the course himself.
• There were presentations of selected papers to make up 10% of the...

TLDR: If you want to specialize/do research in distributed systems, this is a must take course. Classes are fun and engaging and you should attend them - but make good use of them - Professor Luís won't let you use your phone/computer in class, and will ask questions and interact with you. This is probably the most theoretical course I've taken so far - 90% is reading (and actually understanding) papers. The project is directly connected to theory and will only be difficult if you don't sit down understanding the concepts and reading the papers first (which I clearly did not do, so the...

Loved the classes taught by Luis Rodrigues, made the course a lot more interesting and a class was always worth going to. I do recommend taking notes of the examples because once you start studying for exams the slides are harder to understand than the classes. Project was interesting and not that hard once you knew what to do. If you liked distributed systems or are curious about it I recommend doing this class

I do not enjoy the methods which the professor uses to teach, they are very example based and not a lot of theory behind them.

Crucial course for those who want to follow the distributed systems field, but made me understand it’s not really for me. Heavy and complex java project and an ok paper presentation for the lab component. Theory component focuses on the main subject of the course: Paxos consensus algorithm, but then drifts into a lot of replicated system services which are not very interesting imo. Professor Luis Rodrigues is fun and tries to motivate students in theory classes (even though he is confusing sometimes) but in the labs he isn’t the most helpful and kind of doesn’t care. If you don’t want the DS...

Very nice, but can be intensive

I enjoyed this course a lot since it seems the natural progression of Distributed Systems from LEIC, and they teach a lot of interesting and useful concepts for those delving into this area.

It can be challenging in my opinion, since for example, it took me a lot of time to understand an algorithm that was basically the most important thing in the project, Paxos, since I was confusing a lot of things and making a mess out of understanding it. In the end, it stuck and I liked studying for the exam as well, even though it has a lot of material.

TLDR: liked...

Curso bem estruturado. Projeto de programação dedicado à aprendizagem. O que se aprende nas aulas teóricas é impacto direto no projeto.

Cadeira super interessante e muito importante para quem está na área de Sistemas Distribuidos. Tive o prof Luís Rodrigues que foi impecável e puxou bastante por nós. Overall vale muito a pena para quem é da área.

One of the best courses I had in MEIC.

You learn a lot about distributed algorithms and how to build distributed applications. The project is very time-consuming but also really interesting.

They say you should take SD as a prerequisite, but since I wasn’t in LEIC at IST, I didn’t have it, and the course still went well for me, and I got a good grade.

I’d recommend it to anyone doing the Distributed Systems specialization.

Super interesting project for anyone interested in the SD area. The biggest issues were mostly a lack of coordination between the professors and the ambiguous wording of the assignment.

Theoretical classes were very engaging and quite hands-on, in the sense that you build the algorithms yourself to really understand them.

The exam was similar to the ones from pre-MEPP years.

The theoretical classes were taught by Professor Luís Rodrigues. I feel I didn't learn much from them and didn't like the professor too much. Eventually, I stopped attending them.

The practical classes are taught by Professor João Garcia, who also teaches the CMU classes. He’s really chill in DAD and provides lab guides that are actually helpful.

The content covers algorithms for distributed communication, and there’s a part that overlaps with SD.

The project...

The content is basically a continuation of SD, which is great if you’re into that kind of thing. Honestly, I don’t have much to criticize: The project feels appropriate, the material is interesting if you like the area, and I found it easy to study for the exam because the Professor (Luís Rodrigues) shared a lot of resources, and he’s also very available to answer questions.