Jonathan Blow: the videos Hacker News recommends
Not the channel's most viewed videos: the ones HN commenters kept linking with real commentary. The top pick, "Ideas about a new programming language for games.", hN programmers recommend it, and the Jai series that followed, for the game-industry view on replacing C++ and for watching a language being invented.
- 7 HN recommenders 9 months 2014–2025talkHN programmers recommend it, and the Jai series that followed, for the game-industry view on replacing C++ and for watching a language being invented.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2018–2025commentaryIt is the standard citation in HN arguments over Rust for game development, the borrow checker and ECS designs, as a skeptical view from an experienced game developer.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2020–2023talkHN commenters find his insights good, especially the idea that games work for learning by doing and for teaching problem-solving, in contrast to gamification.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2015–2020demoHN points to it as the practical demonstration of data-oriented design, including structure packing and switching between AOS and SOA.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2017–2024talkHN cites it as the best motivation advice some commenters have heard, and it is often shared in procrastination threads.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2015–2022demoHN cites it as an early demonstration of compile-time code execution, predating its popularity in languages like Zig.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2022–2025demoCited in discussions of memory arenas and allocators as the origin of the implicit context idea that later appeared in Odin and other languages.
- cited 3× 0 months 2017–2022talkMostly shared as a more reliable YouTube mirror, and cited as a related talk on motivation; one commenter criticizes Blow's comments on impostor syndrome.
Questions
Which Jonathan Blow video does Hacker News recommend most?
Ideas about a new programming language for games.: recommended in 9 different months by 7 HN users between 2014 and 2025.
Is this every Jonathan Blow video?
No. Only videos that at least three different HN users linked, in at least three different months, with at least a sentence of their own commentary. That filter is what makes the list useful.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.