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CAP Theorem

During a network partition, a distributed system must choose between answering with possibly stale data (availability) and refusing to answer (consistency); it cannot guarantee both. The theorem constrains behavior only during partitions — the everyday tradeoff is latency versus consistency.

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Applying the CAP Theorem in System Design Interviews

The CAP theorem, a foundational principle of distributed systems theory, states that a distributed system can provide only two of the following three guarantees simultaneously: consistency (all nodes…