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Find the Longest Path

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1 HN user recommended this music video1 month2021–2026 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN shares it as a fun, memorable way to explain the longest path problem and as an entry in lists of programming and math songs.

Find the Longest Path is a comedic song by Daniel J. Barrett, a Billy Joel parody that describes the NP-hard longest path problem in informal terms.

“you can listen to a Billy Joel parody that describes the problem in decidedly less academic terms” (HN, 2026)

1 recommendations · 2 citations · Music

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@wpasc Jul 2021 Recommends
on HN thread Akamai Edge DNS was down
Haha please do, a video would be great. Your song reminded me of the song: "Find the Longest Path" which you may get a kick out of: [this video]
A comedic song about the longest path problem

Citations, criticism and jokes

@seniorsassycat Nov 2021 Cites it
on HN thread White Collar Holler – Stan Rogers
Stan Rogers has a knack for writing songs that sound older than himself, this song shows he doesn't need nautical themes to do it. Some other programming and math songs Kill -9 [link] Find the longest path [this video]
A song about the longest path problem

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.

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