I want to clarify a couple of things. I'm not saying that Paul Graham invented this pattern. Actually after he mentioned it, I remembered a friend of my father to implement exactly that in QUICKBASIC in the late 80s :-) The point is that maybe the Redis design was already inside me, but I needed a trigger: I often think of good things after being triggered. And smart people are more likely to tell about good ideas, old and new. That was the point. Similarly I believe there are a lot of simple fundamental ideas that can be re-applied to today's technology, as the landscape changes many things become relevant again.