If you’re not a programmer, have you ever sat in awe as programmers on “the Big Screen” (*cough* movies *cough*) dazzle you with their uber-typing as they construct 3D blocks of code that animate around the screen and reflect onto the programmer’s face? OR if you are a programmer, have you ever watched a movie and wanted to puke due to the inaccuracy of what the movie industry claim programmers do?
Yeah, we work with complex stuff that random passerby don’t understand…but holy balls does Hollywood have it wrong.
Matthew Inman at Drivl.com debunks the Hollywood fluff in 10 well thought out and quite humorous points:
- Code does not move
- Code is not green text on a black background
- Code has structure
- Code is not three dimensional
- Code does not make blip noises as it appears on the screen
- Code cannot be cracked by an 8 year old kid in a matter of second
- Not all code is meant to be cracked
- Code isn’t just 0100110 010101 10100 011
- People who write code use mice
- Most code is not inherently cross platform
I simply listed the headers of each point, to get the full dose of sweet debunking action check out the full article.
My favorite description of them all has to be the 10th item: Most code is not inherently cross platform which reads:
Remember in Independence Day when whatshisface-math-guy writes a virus that works on both his apple laptop AND an alien mothership? Bullshit!
If real life were like film I’d be able to port wordpress to my toaster using a cat5 cable and a bag of glitter.
Hats off to you Mr. Inman.
Comments
2 responses to “What Code DOESN’T Do In Real Life”
Sadly I do remember when code was green text on a black screen – long before GUI! Yes, I’m “old school”. I still like the movie War Games, as technically inaccurate as it may be! Is it really that bad to be portrayed as someone who could save the world from war by a few strokes at the keyboard? :)
“It ranks right up there with the joke about the user who uses his cdrom tray as a cupholder, I’m pretty sure I’d heard that joke a thousand times by 1997.” —actually, I somehow missed this joke despite being the kind of individual the joke is a target for and I am now enjoying reading it in 2006- LMAO :)