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Find the Longest Path

Find the Longest Path on HackerTube: recommended by 1 Hacker News commenter across 1 month, 2021–2026.

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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.

Why Hacker News recommends it

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.

people recommended it
1
separate months
1
strong recommendations
0
discussed on HN
2021–2026
“you can listen to a Billy Joel parody that describes the problem in decidedly less academic terms”
— saghm, May 2026, in “SingleRide: Longest route on NYC Subway without visiting the same station twice”

What HN commenters said

3 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

wpascJul 2021Recommends

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

in “Akamai Edge DNS was down” · View on HN

saghmMay 2026Cites it

Finding the longest path in a graph is itself a pretty well-described NP-complete problem: [link] Alternately, you can listen to a Billy Joel parody that describes the problem in decidedly less academic terms: ▶ this video

in “SingleRide: Longest route on NYC Subway without visiting the same station twice” · View on HN

seniorsassycatNov 2021Cites it

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

in “White Collar Holler – Stan Rogers” · View on HN

Topics & tags

Satire & parodyComputability & complexity theoryAlgorithms & data structureslongest pathparody songcomplexitygraph theorynp-hard