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Realistic Portrayals of Software Programmers?
lwbecker2 asks: "Warren Harrison has written a thought-provoking editorial piece on The Software Developer as Movie Icon. He explores the fact that new entrants to Computer Science curriculum are typically clueless about what 'real' developers actually do. While researching the issue of why this is the case, he determined that some potential CS degree seekers are forming opinions from portrayals in movies and cinema. He describes what he asserts to be inaccurate portrayals of developers in War Games, TRON, and The Net, and asks for input and opinions on 'the impact of the cinema and television on new software developers' expectations, as well as learn of any films that do a better job of portraying our profession...' I am sure Slashdot readers have some input on this, and I am curious if people believe _any_ movie has acurately portrayed software developers?"
I hacked the gibson.....
I guess if you join the military and do hacking for the Gov... might be some sort of accurate portrayal
... are so obvious here that no one needs to make any. If you do, I might set the building on fire.
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
was pretty accurate.
Most of the software people I know look just like Hugh Jackman, get to hook up with Halle Berry, and routinely do neat secret agent stuff.
Or at least I wish they did. Office Space has the most accurate portrayal of programmers I've ever seen in a movie.
comes immediately to mind.
Michael... BOLTON?!?
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
But it was so boring it never got published.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
revenge of the nerds.
Computer guys are the ones that hack into computers in a minimum of keystrokes, and say "We're in." And they always develop some evil artificial intelligence that threatens the world, and they can get incredible detail from a blurry photo simply by saying "Enhancing." Everybody knows this stuff.
I don't think the portrayal is inaccurate at all. But then I'm an EE.
...
--sex
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
The diff is that movie programmers are cool and do cool things. Real programmers and fucked up nerds who will bore you with inane trivia about babylon-5 at the drop of a hat.
I feel that the movie "Pi" is an accurate portrayal of software developers. After the first couple days of each week, listening to the sales manager tell every potential customer that we can do absolutely anything virtually for free and yesterday, I wish I could drill a hole in my skull too.
What self-respecting developer hasn't pictured himself immersed in a high-tech world interacting with characters and enviroments controlled by a hostile master control program, Fighting for change against impossible odds?
.NET developers are you?
Oh wait, you aren't reffering to
There is no spork.
I'm convinced the prediction for Mr. Gates in the South Park movie will eventually come to pass.
"Does pr0n accurately depict sex?"
Yes. Duh. For me sex always involves at least 9 people, wives who don't care, and lots of toys, preferably of the mechanically driven kind. Oh, and people shaving one another. Gotta have that.
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
If the mass media has a silly view of programmers, it is too late to change it. When I first saw Jurassic Park, and they had that scene in the outdoor cafe where they start zooming in on the greasy fat unpleasant guy, one phrase was zooming through my mind over and over: "Please God don't let him be the evil computer guy."
Me and God have to have a little talk.
>think that shooting nerf guns in the office makes them "cool."
I don't understand. Are you saying that nerf guns aren't cool?
Alright, boys - take away his geek license.
I'm not trying to be redundant or anything here...but the second I saw the newspost, I thought of Officespace and how incredibly clever I was coming up with that name. I was thinking of my +5 "Insightful" score and how after people saw how clever I was and how knowledgable with movies I was, my self-confidence would be boosted and I'd be certain to find a woman. However, after clicking "read more" and discovering that 99.9% of all the posts refer to Officespace in one way or another, I was horribly dissappointed. But..I still wanted to post just to show that I'm still clever even if I wasn't the first one.
The anti-salmon
so you're looking for accurate depictions of software programmers in movies? i hope this helps!
i usually roll out of bed around 11 or noon (up all night clubbin wit da ladies!) and drive to work in my brand new hummer, completely disregarding traffic signals, speed limits and roads in general. assuming there arent any high speed chases with the bad guys on the way, i make it in to work in time for the boss to yell at me again for "violating protocol" again! im such an eXtreme programmer and i do things my way! thats about when the terrorists show up to the building to take my girlfriend hostage, forcing me to have to fight them all with my bare hands and the occasional uzi taken from fallen enemies (everyone else is taken hostage too, so im the only one that can fight). since im so ripped, i can streetfight anyone and win easily! at around 4 or 5 pm i manage to get to the leader and fight him to the death at the top of the building, throwing him off in the process. once i get my woman back, we get it on and then im off to the clubs for the night! but trouble arises at the club......
oh wait, you want honesty? well heres honesty: unless its a comedy, dont make movies about software developers!
Gentlemen...BEHOLD!
-Dr. Weird
Although that one scene with Lucy Liu as the dominatrix consultant showed teeming masses of geeky wage slaves, it did have the redeeming quality of her shouting, "Who builds the company's products?! YOU DO!"
I remember watching that at about the exact same time our own tech team was denied free sodas by our pigfarking CTO.
"My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
re: cop shows
The next time you see a cop car sitting in the corner of a parking lot, answer this question:
What is the cop doing?
a) he's eating his donuts
b) he's trying to catch a master car thief
c) he's going to swoop in on a drug deal
d) sleeping
e) he's trying to get an inch thick stack of paperwork done so he can get back to his real job: driving around on his regular patrol and keeping one ear on the radio just in case he needs to take another police report.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
All aliens use AppleTalk...
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
My friends (mostly engineers) and I were discussing the success of shows like ER, Law and Order, Ally McBeal, Scrubs, etc. It seems like the popular shows are based on doctors, lawyers, or police work.
"Why not a show about engineers?" someone asked.
"Yeah, we could call it 'CR' - Conference Room! They could show us sitting around at boring meetings, eating doughnuts, writing emails and stuff..."
That's when we realized why there are no shows about engineers.
Would you rather have the masses read /. to form their stereo types of CS people?
"Computer science is clearly a field for people with enormous anuses, way too much time on their hands, hot grits down their pants, and a homosexual lust for cowboys."
Of course, this isn't too far off the mark from CMU.
Why bother.
I'd watch it so I'd know when a @#$)(^@ cop was about to ticket my car!
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue.
Speaking as a Jedi, I have to say, the movie portrayals are quite unrealistic, but frankly, it's the only way to get new members.
I mean, for every trade negotiation that turns into an assassination attempt and daring escape from a battle fortress, there are thousands that are just plain boring; you sit around, listen to proposal and counter-proposal repeated verbatium for hours, until somebody changes something a whit, repeat, for a few weeks, then you break up for consultations.
For every five minutes you get to duel with a Sith Lord, you spend YEARS doing the sword-technique equivalent of sitting at a keyboard, typing 'jjj[space]fff[space]jjj[space]fff[space]'
Anywho, I don't mean to get off on a rant here, but the life of your typical Jedi is NOTHING like those flashy bastards you see in the movies.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
As just this morning I was getting my dick sucked while breaking into the DOD's mainframe. It took about 20 seconds.
SONY. Because caucasians are just too damn tall.
I don't.
I enjoy getting paid more because people are a little scared and a little bit intimidated by us. Letting them peek behind the curtain isn't a healthy career move.
Bowie J. Poag
Does pr0n accurately depict sex?
Are you kidding? For most people here, pr0n is sex.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
What about Jeff Goldblum's character in Independence Day? Let's see... generally ignored and looked down upon, until everything gets fubar, THEN they turn to him, and he basically says: Yah, well, I knew that all along, but nobody was paying attention to me or bothered to ask. All you management are all alike. Oh, and then he makes that kick-ass virus that can be uploaded seamlessly into an alien computer system and displays a skull and crossbones as it does the dirty work.
Or perhaps Joe Morton's Miles Dyson from Terminator 2? Working with a team to reverse engineer a foreign piece of technology. Working long hours, forsaking his family for the project, always spending time on his computer. Also, completely ignoring the possible ramifications of his actions because the possible breakthroughs and creativeness are too tempting. Not to mention that he's observed the security measures at his place of employment and thought of ways to circumvent them.
Or how about Demon Seed? Ok, maybe that wasn't quite so accurate for 1977...
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
Man, if my girlfriend worked on ebola I'd be very careful to let her win *any* arguments we had. And if she ever sneezed while we were snuggled up, it would be very expensive to fix the whole I would leave in the wall as I ran through it.
These movies PRECISELY describe what I do all day. Why, right this minute, I'm typing on one of my 8 totally custom made keyboards suspended in the air around me by a complex system of racks and harnesses, while glancing from side to side at the 21 monitors hanging around my control chair (with power swivel), and protecting my neon-lit plexiglass-cased server from being attacked by rogue agents and crackers going after the kernel! I'm regularly stopped by agents in expensive suits and 400 dollar Ray-Bans on the street and threatened about my attempts to bring down the national infrastructure with my super password cracking program that, if released, would allow instant access to every system on the planet. And don't even get me started with my super intense VR room in the back that let's me have hyper-realistic "intimate encounters" with my computer-generated love slave(s).
I think we need to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding our profession and let the world know that we absolutely have the best fucking jobs on the planet.
-Oakbox
Not just answers, the correct questions.
All of the female programmers I work with look like Angeline Jolie. We all run around the city for a few hours and then order pizza while the uber-programmer sits and types at a keyboard while equations float in the air around his head.
I also score with the Angeline-clones every day. We just knock the keyboard and mouse of the desk and do naughty things after work.
Sigh - back to work. I have to use a pay phone to save the world.
The most realistic portrayal of "techie" types I've ever seen is "Nick Burn's -- Your Company's Computer Guy!"
Or maybe the fat guy in Jurrasic Park...
Dude, you're only supposed to take the intro once!
SONY. Because caucasians are just too damn tall.
The Hollywood portrayal could be worse, you know. Just imagine if they portrayed debugging like a ST:TNG episode, complete with flashing red alert lights and lots of noises:
Picard: What's our status?
Data: The process is attempting to completely allocate all available memory and CPU cycles.
Worf: Available memory is down to 50%. 40%...
Picard: Suggestions?
Riker: Perform a break. Try to find out what happened.
Picard: Make it so.
Data: Ctrl-C was not successful. Process is still consuming resources.
Worf: 30%, 20%...
Wesley: Captain, this may be due to an incorrect check in the while loop...
Picard: Shut up, Wesley!
Geordi: Captain, we're losing segmentation containment. We've got to dump the core!
Worf: ...10%...
Picard: All hands, this is the Captain! All hands, log out! Repeat, all hands log out!
Kaboom! Blue screen of death.
GMD
watch this
being the same as the speed of light...
PLEASE don't tell the the truth... the more people think that I'm capable of breaking into top secret databases, alter credit cars statements, revoke driver's licenses, reroute spy satelites to take ultra high-res pictures or Natalie Portman sunbathing, etc. all from a public phone booth with a paperclip, the more likely I'll be able to look cool and suave to the ladies... Don't blow my cover man!
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Office space was a good representation of the office working environment. Stupid bosses who don't do anything. Idiotic tasks specifically designed to waste time. Policies enforced just to annoy you (You forgot the cover sheet on the TPS report). "Friendly" staff evaluations to randomly lay off good staff..
.. well .. boring. I do a lot of nothing, and don't get what I want to do accomplished. Oddly enough, what I want to do, and the company projects, are one in the same.. Read on...
/24's traffic at the router.
Been there, lived through it..
A portrayal of my life would be pretty
Follow me through Sunday evening and Monday..
---- Sunday Evening.
Sunday, 6pm.. Coding new authentication module for Apache..
20 minutes reading (from my personal O'Reilly library, dejanews, and the very few sites that may have clues to what I'm doing).
30 minutes writing.
5 minutes reading work
2 seconds deciding I didn't like parts of it, and deleting 90%
drink a beer.
[lather;rinse;repeat] for the next 8 hours. On the weekend. Like, when I'm not even supppose to be working.
Pager beeps at 2am. One server with 6 months of uptime is unreachable.
Log into server. It's running.
Check httpd processes, they're running.
Try browsing to server, it's unreachable.
30 seconds scratching head.
Kill all httpd processes. Restart web server, check error logs. Starts normally.
Try browsing to server. It's unrecachable.
Reboot server (for spite).
2 minutes drinking beer.
Server's back up, still can't browse to it.
netstat -a -n
Oh look, one IP has 10,000 connections from a university in Russia (212.96.201.28, for those really interested)
verify TCP_SYNCOOKIES enabled. yup.
Check logs. No entries for that IP.
Drop traffic that
Browse to site. It works.
Drink more beer. Go to bed at 3am
---------
Monday morning.
Wake up late.
9am Drag my happy ass into office.
9:20 discussion of what happened, and what we can do to prevent it happening again. I suggest going into used car sales.
10:00 arrive at my desk.
10:01 users start asking for their forgotten Email or FTP passwords.
10:20 start back on authentication module.
10:21 phone call forwarded from support.
10:45 hang up on support call. I hate users.
10:50 start back on authentication module.
10:51 "Urgent" help needed for other people's broken CGI's.
11:45 Finish fixing really shitty CGI's.
11:46 decision: module or smoke.. Choose smoke. Can't find cyanide cigarette, choose cloves instead.
12:00 back to desk with sandwich in hand.
12:00.01 Can you help this guy on line 3?
12:15 get rid of guy on phone. Unwrap sandwidth.
12:16 "My computer has a blue screen, can you help me". Decision: shoot user, or hit reset for them.
12:17->12:30 listen to user cry because they had some important program open, and I lost it. I'm so evil.
12:31 pick up sandwidth
12:31.0001 phone rings. Boss wants to talk about last night. I remind him I sent an Email on it. He asks for his Email password.
12:45 I reach for the sandwich. "important" customer walks in, asking for changes to his site. I point to my sandwich. He says it'll only take a minute.
1:30 {sigh} I look longingly at my lunch. Quickly I scribble on a post it "Comitted Suicide, memorial next week", and put it on my door. Phone stays outside the door too.
1:31 the first bite of my sandwidth.. MMmmmmm.. Almost as good as street meet, with less rodent parts.
1:35 all gone? I'm still hungry.
1:36 begin work on authentication module.
1:37 boss walks in (didn't he read the note?), wants to know why I haven't finished the authentication module.. And then throws another task at me that's more urgent.
3:30 more urgent task done. Back to authentication module.
3:35 parts arrive for servers that we've been waiting for, for 2 weeks. Delegate work. Spend the next half hour explaining how to do 5 minutes work.
4:15 smoke. smoke. smoke. it's oddly quiet. No phones, no users. I wonder if I can bring my laptop down here.
4:30 authentication module. I still haven't written one line yet, but I'm trying..
4:31 Boss comes in screaming, I think one of the networks is slow. Spend the next hour justifying the fact that nothing is slow, enforced with transfer rates and ping times.
5:30 smoke.
5:45 contemplate suicide. Go back to office anyways. Start working on authentication module.
5:50 girlfriend calls. "Why don't you love me, you never spend time with me."
6:20 finish with girlfriend. Take elevator to top floor to find out roof access is locked (smart people).
6:30 go home.
So, today I accomplished exactly *NOTHING*.
That's my typical fuckin' work day.
I've gone as far as to put the phones outside my office door (including cell), put a big note explaining that I'm on an important project and to leave me alone. I then lock and barracade the door. That'll get the boss banging on the door within 5 minutes. {sigh} After asking if I'm ok, and why I did it, he then asks if the project is done..
I tried working from home one day, because there was a project that needed to be completed (the boss wanted it immediately).. The boss insisted that I keep my phone on, in case there were emergencies.. I took 68 calls from the office that day.
I can't win.
I may as well be doing TPS reports with fish flavored cover sheets.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
. . . that a real programmer would never be caught dead saying "software programmer."
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
I hope that clears some things up. Feel free to quote these rules when someone is bugging you throughout the movie trying to get you to explain what just happened and asking you incredulously if the bad guy or good guy is really dead.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.