HackerTube

THE VIDEO SHELF · unix philosophy

Unix and Google

A short animated simulation comparing how Multics and Unix were developed, showing why Unix's small composable programs and pipes gave it a efficiency advantage. It frames Unix as a moonshot achievable by a small team.

Watch & explore the libraryYouTube ↗

Why HN readers recommended it

Cited constantly in threads on microservices, composability and the Unix philosophy as a compact explanation of why small interoperable pieces win.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel
FOAM
Topic
unix philosophy
Format
explainer
Level
general
HN recommenders in dataset
4
HN mentions in dataset
14
Recommendation years in dataset
2016–2023

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

  • I wrote a non-programmer summary to some of my friends, because my mind is blown. Here it is (warning: it's very informal). This is some next level 80/20 stuff, I'd argue it's even 99/1 (consultant speech for "being efficient" by seeing if you can exploit …

    mettamage on Hacker News · 2021-06
    In Glue: The Dark Matter of Software

  • I was going to comment on this very thing in the other thread about software glue[1]. In that article there is a youtube video on Multics vs Unix[2] which really outlines why microservices were always doomed. Someone should coin a new law for how programmers …

    deckard1 on Hacker News · 2021-06
    In Disasters I've seen in a microservices world

  • This video shows how Unix was mathematically more efficient than Multics, which goes a very long way at explaining its success and longevity: [VIDEO]

    kgr on Hacker News · 2016-06
    In The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix (2011)

Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.

Keep exploring