I just voted up a link on reddit. The link doesn’t matter, but it started me thinking about the chain of events that followed it.

First, a bit of javascript submits some information back to reddit’s server. The python code receiving reddit stores this.

At some point later, some ruby code running on my slicehost requests a json file from reddit. The python serves this up, the ruby fetches it, parses it and hands it off to delicious.com, where a mix of php and C++ (I think) stores it in their backend.

At some point later a php script running on my blog fetches that data from delicious. It dumps it into a MySQL database.

At some point later still, someone comes along to my website. They see a link to the thing I voted up on reddit, served up by php.

Alternative titles: “Polyglotism now!”, “…except for too much indirection”, “He Knows The Unix Way”.