Home › Topics › Software Engineering & Languages
C, C++, Rust, Go & systems languages: videos Hacker News recommends
Systems programming languages: C, C++, Rust, Go, Zig, D, memory management, ownership, concurrency, goroutines, templates, CppCon talks, Herb Sutter, Rob Pike. Below: every video in this topic that at least three HN users linked with real commentary, in at least three different months (134 talks, 11 tutorials, 8 demos), best-scored first, with the comments on each video page.
- Programming language design 193
- Functional programming 225
- Python, Ruby & scripting languages 120
- Web development 160
- Software architecture & design 177
- Software performance & optimization 123
- Compilers, interpreters & program analysis 98
- Testing, debugging & developer tools 155
- Software practice, open source & careers 154
- Software (other) 36
- 7 HN recommenders 11 months 2017–2025HN repeatedly recommends it as an entertaining, mind-opening talk on allocator design and composable generic programming.
- 13 HN recommenders 12 months 2012–2025G GoogleFOSSSydney · talkHN returns to it for years as an elegant introduction to writing a lexer that is easy to follow even without a parsing background.
- 9 HN recommenders 10 months 2018–2026HN repeatedly cites it as the definitive explanation of SwissTable, the design behind Abseil, Rust's hash map and Go's maps.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2018–2023HN treats it as the go-to explanation of ECS, valuable even for people who don't use Rust.
- 13 HN recommenders 10 months 2016–2024A perennial favorite, recommended as proof that expressive modern C++ can compile to efficient code even on tiny retro hardware.
- 7 HN recommenders 9 months 2014–2025HN programmers recommend it, and the Jai series that followed, for the game-industry view on replacing C++ and for watching a language being invented.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2015–2026It is the go-to talk HN points to for data-oriented design and hardware-aware performance thinking, despite Acton's blunt style.
- 8 HN recommenders 9 months 2017–2025E Eskil Steenberg · talkHN recommends it as the one long programming video worth watching, a provocative and influential take on C.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2012–2025The canonical recommendation for learning Go concurrency, praised as entertaining and clarifying when to use channels versus mutexes.
- 7 HN recommenders 7 months 2016–2025HN people cite it constantly in C versus C++ debates as the case for teaching modern C++ idioms rather than C first.
- 6 HN recommenders 7 months 2018–2024R Recurse Center · talkHN repeatedly recommends it as the definitive introduction to Zig straight from its author, and links to it whenever Zig's design choices come up.
- 7 HN recommenders 7 months 2014–2024A perennial recommendation for anyone learning performance optimization, cited whenever hash tables, cache behavior or STL containers come up.
- 5 HN recommenders 6 months 2019–2025HN treats it as the standard introduction to Zig by its creator, with some calling it among the best talks they have seen.
- 7 HN recommenders 7 months 2020–2026HN commenters cite it whenever zero-cost abstraction claims come up, especially for why unique_ptr is not free on some ABIs.
- 5 HN recommenders 7 months 2017–2025HN people point to it for rrb-trees, text editor data structures and bringing Clojure-style persistent structures to C++.
- 6 HN recommenders 6 months 2024–2026X xDahl · talkHN commenters in memory management and language design threads cite it as the best explanation of group lifetimes versus per-object ownership.
- 4 HN recommenders 5 months 2020–2024HN treats it as the classic go-to for learning atomics and memory ordering, recommended over books.
- 7 HN recommenders 6 months 2019–2024HN recommends it as an entertaining talk that starts simple and goes deep on practical performance optimization.
- 3 HN recommenders 5 months 2015–2019A favorite on Ask HN lists of programming YouTube channels, praised for mind-blowing systems and graphics programming and a watchable coding style.
- 7 HN recommenders 6 months 2018–2022HN recommends it as an entertaining, mind-blowing look at compiler cleverness from a great speaker.
- 7 HN recommenders 7 months 2016–2023HN returns to it to explain why Go deliberately resists syntactic sugar and new features.
- 7 HN recommenders 7 months 2017–2022Recommended whenever versioning, semver, monorepos and backward compatibility are debated, for its nuanced treatment of dependencies.
- 6 HN recommenders 6 months 2018–2025HN considers it one of the best talks for understanding how containers work from the ground up.
- 6 HN recommenders 6 months 2018–2023Recommended as a fast, brilliant introduction to GDB's TUI mode and lesser-known features, useful for anyone who has only used IDE debuggers.
- 6 HN recommenders 5 months 2022–2024HN recommends it as the main introduction to Cpp2 and cppfront, and as a credible effort to evolve C++.
- 5 HN recommenders 6 months 2017–2025HN repeatedly points people to it as the best overview of low-latency trading engineering.
- 3 HN recommenders 6 months 2020–2025HN points to it as the founders' own explanation of what Oxide is building and why, a frequent link whenever Oxide comes up.
- 5 HN recommenders 5 months 2021–2024Cited again and again as the framework for discussing languages in terms of values, and how organizational values shape software quality.
- 6 HN recommenders 5 months 2014–2025J Jason Tubnor · talkFrequently linked as an entertaining and alarming account of OpenSSL code quality and why the fork happened.
- 4 HN recommenders 5 months 2018–2025T The D Language Foundation · talkHN commenters bring it up whenever C++ complexity or the pitfalls of language design come up, as a witty and authoritative warning.
- 3 HN recommenders 5 months 2013–2022HN programmers admire it as a clean, clever demonstration of emulator design and as the standout of a favorite programming YouTuber.
- 3 HN recommenders 5 months 2016–2019G GopherCon UK · talkHN recommends it as an accessible way to remove the magic from Docker and understand how containers work.
- 4 HN recommenders 5 months 2024–2026C ChimiChanga · talkHN cites it as one of the best talks on data-oriented design, applying struct-of-arrays and compact data layouts to a real compiler.
- 4 HN recommenders 5 months 2015–2018HN cites it in C++ versus Rust safety debates for its lifetime profile demo, and recommends it as a modern C++ talk.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2014–2022HN recommends it as an approachable way into C and low-level programming that gets to something visible quickly.
- 2 HN recommenders 4 months 2016–2025HN cites it in memory management debates for its treatment of reference counting problems, destructor stack overflows and deferred pointers.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2018–2025Y Yusuke Endoh · demoCommenters repeatedly point to it as an astonishing, beautiful piece of obfuscated-C code golf.
- 5 HN recommenders 4 months 2025–2026Pointed to as the in-depth talk on exception mechanics and code size for embedded C++.
- 5 HN recommenders 4 months 2020–2026HN points to it to show how deliberately the Rust team arrived at async/await and why it was chosen over alternatives like green threads.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2020–2025HN recommends it as a must-watch catalogue of C++ footguns, often cited in debates about Rust and C++ safety.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2021–2025G gnbitcom · talkThe standard link for explaining the concurrency versus parallelism distinction and the motivations behind Go's concurrency model.
- 5 HN recommenders 4 months 2019–2020Recommended during the await syntax debates for explaining the constraints that shaped Rust's async design.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2019–2024HN people point to it as a rare chance to watch skilled developers write real code live, pair programming and explaining as they go.
- 3 HN recommenders 4 months 2020–2025Pointed to whenever C++ exception overhead, bans on exceptions or error-handling alternatives come up.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2011–2024Commenters rate the whole playlist as high-quality, clear teaching that builds foundations from memory and machine instructions up to different paradigms.
- 4 HN recommenders 3 months 2021–2024N Nick Black · demoHN people share it as a striking demonstration of how much graphics a modern terminal can do.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2018–2026HN returns to it as the go-to talk on string internals, small string packing and why small percentage optimizations matter at scale.
- 4 HN recommenders 3 months 2021HN recommends it as a phenomenal talk on Zig's C interop and on choosing between C, Rust and Zig for systems work.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2016–2021Commenters say it changes how you think about types and the STL, and makes a case for simple modern C++.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2016–2026HN points to it whenever undefined behavior comes up, as the best explanation of the reasoning behind UB, though some dispute its framing.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2017–2022Cited in Rust and systems-language threads as the best introduction to ATS, a language claimed to go beyond Rust's safety guarantees.
- 2 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2026Recommended as the best presentation on how modern CPUs run code, and why speculative execution matters for performance.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2020–2022HN calls it a surprisingly fun, approachable talk on a hard problem and cites it in floating-point threads.
- 2 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2025Recommended in C versus C++ and embedded threads as the expert view on adoption and persuasion.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2021–2026HN treats it as the definitive resource for understanding Pin semantics and lists it among async Rust learning materials.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2021HN recommends the series as a thorough look at low-level game programming by someone with deep knowledge, offered free.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2018–2023N NOKIA Technology Center Wrocław · talkHN points to it as the go-to explanation of why memory layout beats pointer-chasing structures on real hardware.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2025HN recommends it as an enlightening explanation of atomics, caches and memory ordering from a strong presenter.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017L linux conf au 2017 - Hobart, Australia · talkHN recommends it as an exciting look at how a browser can be rebuilt for performance and safety, including the WebRender ideas that fed into Firefox Quantum.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2024–2025J Jane Street · talkRecommended as a fascinating technical account of the optimizations behind uv's speed.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2018–2020HN recommends it as a detailed, entertaining look at the crazy optimizations compilers do.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2015–2020HN recommends it as an eye-opening primer on benchmarking and performance analysis, especially for people who have not benchmarked on Linux.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2018–2022Recommended whenever the STL mindset or avoiding raw loops in C++ comes up, as an enlightening talk on expressive algorithms.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2020–2021R Redis · talkHN recommends it as the clearest explanation of how Zig achieves colorless async/await.
- 2 HN recommenders 3 months 2016–2018HN people recommend it as the starting point for modern C++ and for the language's safety story.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2013–2025HN recommends it as the clearest account of the CSP lineage behind Go's goroutines and channels.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2017–2020Praised as the best talk of CppCon 2017 and the key introduction to metaclasses and generative C++.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2018–2025It 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.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2012–2023HN uses it as a concise statement of the thinking behind Go's design.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2025G Gopher Academy · talkHN points to it for background on how the Go toolchain targets many architectures and why its assembler is designed that way.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2019–2024HN recommends it as an in-depth, practical introduction to atomics and weak versus strong memory ordering, relevant to ARM and Rust as well as C++.
- 2 HN recommenders 3 months 2016–2023HN commenters recommend it in Smalltalk and Unix threads as a demonstration of runtime dynamism hiding in native binaries and shared libraries.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2019–2021HN fans praise Bisqwit as a favorite programming YouTuber and this video as an excellent look at dithering.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2021–2022A ACCU Conference · talkHN recommends it as a good overview of modern C patterns, including in threads about learning C.
- 4 HN recommenders 3 months 2016–2018HN lists it among good resources on building text editors and as a recommended lunch-and-learn talk.
- 2 HN recommenders 3 months 2021–2022HN commenters recommend it as a demonstration of SerenityOS's hackability and fast iteration across all layers of the system.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2023–2025HN commenters recommend it as the main resource on Swift as an incremental successor to C++ and on how the interoperability works in practice.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2016–2026HN commenters recommend it as an introduction to real-time and low-latency programming in C++ for people getting into audio.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2020–2025Recommended as a great talk on solving fragmentation for C/C++ and runtimes like Ruby and Python without code changes.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2023–2025Used as the primary source for Apple's stated plan to make Swift its successor to C++ and for how interop supports gradual transition.
- 5 HN recommenders 3 months 2020–2025The go-to reference for why file operations are slow on Windows and how antivirus filters, not NTFS itself, are the cause.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2020–2023Recommended as a slow-paced, detailed live-coding session that makes lifetimes click once you are past Rust basics.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2020–2021Recommended as a quick, clear overview of allocators and arenas that also shows how Zig approaches allocation.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2018–2021HN cites it as a concrete, worked example of data-oriented design and as an alternative to OOP in performance-sensitive code.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2018–2020HN people point to it as an excellent, inspirational talk on Rust GUI architecture, and it led many to the Druid project.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2017–2025Cited as the talk that introduced Upspin, and called fascinating and really good by commenters.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2020–2022HN points to it as a fun, technically deep talk that makes memory-safety bugs vivid through a beloved game.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2023–2026HN points to it as the best deep dive into Mojo's design, including MLIR use and SIMD-first scalars.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2015–2021Recommended as a clear, practical introduction to atomics and lock-free programming in C++.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2023–2024R RustNL · talkHN commenters recommend it for the live-coded demos running at high frame rates, calling the performance impressive.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2020–2026H Hydra · talkRecommended as a good watch on how Go's M:N:P scheduler works and why it was designed that way compared with alternative schemes.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2015–2019Cited as evidence that large production apps share a C++ core with native UI, in cross-platform and React Native or Flutter debates.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2023–2026G Greg Johnston · talkCited as evidence that DOM access is not the bottleneck for WebAssembly, and as an explanation of signals-based updates versus virtual DOM.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2012–2019Frequently cited for the claim that Photoshop's codebase could shrink dramatically with generic programming.
- 3 HN recommenders 2 months 2023–2025M Microsoft Israel R&D Center · talkHN uses it as the primary source for Microsoft's Rust adoption and its reasoning on TPM and security requirements.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2017–2025HN repeatedly cites it for Midori lessons: compatibility matters for adoption, and the Windows team stayed sceptical even with Midori running real workloads.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2025–2026Pointed to as a non-promotional, realistic long session of an experienced engineer working with AI on non-trivial code.
- 1 HN recommenders 2 months 2021–2026HN points to it as the authoritative talk on Swiss tables, their design rationale, and real-world effects like Hyrum's law.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2021–2024Recommended as a thorough, well-regarded explanation of hash table design tradeoffs and why the standard container is a poor choice.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2016–2019Cited in Electron, Flutter and React Native debates as evidence that large products can share C++ core code with native views.
Showing the 100 best-scored of 161. Use search to find the rest.
Questions
What is the most recommended c, c++, rust, go & systems languages video on Hacker News?
CppCon 2015: Andrei Alexandrescu “std::allocator...” by CppCon: HN repeatedly recommends it as an entertaining, mind-opening talk on allocator design and composable generic programming.
How is this c, c++, rust, go & systems languages list ranked?
By HackerTube's score: the number of distinct months in which an HN comment recommended the video, plus half a point for every month with a strong recommendation. One viral thread counts less than steady recommendations over years.
Where do the videos come from?
From every Hacker News comment between 2007 and 2026 that linked a YouTube video, labeled by an AI model as a recommendation, a citation, a joke or a criticism. The list is published by HackerTube under ODC-By 1.0; this edition adds indexable pages and the comment context.
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.