Realistic Portrayals of Software Programmers? 874
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?"
Sadly, (Score:5, Informative)
Office Space (Score:5, Informative)
Antitrust (Score:1, Informative)
"Antitrust" is the only one that's even come close (Score:3, Informative)
startup.com (Score:5, Informative)
It was a documentary, and it was real people, but what do you want, another Office Space comment?
Actually, a pretty accurate portrayal of a programmer in a movie was in Pump Up the Volume, even though he ran a pirate radio station and wasn't a programmer. He worked out of his parent's basement, was a loner, and had a different on-air personality than in real life.
my personal hacker movie list (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Most Accurate Portrayal of a Computer Award... (Score:5, Informative)
fsn stands for "file system navigator" - you can still get it from SGI here [sgi.com].
You need an old version of IRIX to run it (5.3) and I remember doing so back in the day. Basically you can "fly" through the filesystem hierarchy, and the vertical bars are the sizes of the files, colors are for age and the height of the base is the size of the directory.
Nothing you can't accomplish with du and ls, but great for impressing people in a movie :-)
Re:office space jokes... (Score:1, Informative)
-end of line-
Re:got one... (Score:2, Informative)
_Hack the Planet!_
Disclosure (Score:2, Informative)
My vote goes to "Disclosure" with Michael Douglas and Dennis Miller. Though not strictly software developers, they were engineers (working on CD-ROM drives, IIRC), and they actually seemed to work like engineers. (It was based on a Crieghton novel.) (Besides, Douglas' character lived on Bainbridge Island and rode the ferry to work every day. Ah yes, mad dash at 07:09:59 to make the 7:10 sailing, sip the latte on the boat on the way over, short hike to the office, cut schema all day, out at a reasonable hour to catch the boat back, Fosters on the ferry on the way home. Very realistic. How I miss that.)