The worst movies with developers (…and why they are awful)

Some movies can even be considered good as action movie, special effects, good plot… But they don’t describe, in fact, the life of a developer…

The list below contains some jewels that are true raspberries in many ways. Some show a completely insane way to develop software. Typically, to look good with technology on the screen:

• Type very fast
• Open many windows
• No scripts allowed. Perform all the commands head and remember all head parameters.
• Prototypes are not experimental things with little functionality. They are perfect working advanced technologies that were hidden.
• Never document nothing: if the prototype is lost, everything is lost (I call it “Captain America Serum effect)”

Well, but now the movies and what makes them bad. The premise is: the film wants to be serious by showing the development work, but it is so awkward that it just can’t…

Swordfish

It tells the story of some sort of a paramilitary organization that wants access to a locked money. To have access to this money, they need a hacker who makes codes while drinking and dancing (seriously! See it here).

What makes it a bad movie for developers?

First because I believe that since the birth of any POSIX system, without access to the command line, it is impossible to run any program or script. I never understood how guys can push some sort of “alt + tab” and magically open a window and start running scripts. All that with no login.

For those who are not developers: try to get administrator privileges (root) on your mobile ( “to root it”). Then you can see how difficult it is.

Not to mention that “singular” style  to write software… Seriously, when you program you theoretically know what you’re doing. You need not be expecting, if it fails, you go and correct it.

Hackers

Tells the story of a group of clubbers that use computers.

What makes it a bad movie for developers?

First, I can’t understand why the heck people associate hackers to people who like to go to clubs and loves to dress weird. Really, I don’t. I am pretty sure that if one scan through a club, one will find physiotherapists, nutritionists and physical education teachers, lawyers, doctors and rarely engineers, computer scientists, hackers and those alike.

Another dummy stuff: the way they show how a hacker breaks into a system by  collecting information in garbage is ridiculous. It is easier (and cleaner) to do a bogus call and literally ask for user password than anything else…

Note: a real hacker will spend all those party hours with something technical. Or playing PC. In Autodesenvolvimento, I tell a story, called “Building up the Kernel” in a section called “Give a break to development”.

Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0)

A policeman and a computer technician must save the world (the US in this case) from a hacker who took care of all services.

What makes it a bad movie for developers?

Before everything, one thing: it is not bad as an action movie. But as  we are evaluating the point of view of development here… Well…

It’s bad because I really wish it was possible to control things the way they do it in this movie. The world would be better, with better services and all much cheaper. We are VERY far from it. An idea, a wrong one I must say, is throwing an iron bar to short circuit energy cables. Without warning the company, who knows how long it will take for someone to fix it?

An eternity. So preserve the infrastructure. (please, don’t do it. It is a thought experiment).

The film only scares un-technical ones. And that is it. By the way, There are a long list of honorable mentions with the same problem:

• The Net
• Antitrust (this is not even a bad movie… But it features a hacker with unlimited powers…)
• Eagle Eye

Independence Day

A technician cable TV and an American fighter pilot, along with the president of the United States, face advanced alien invaders that do not have antivirus or login passwords technologies. (Maybe that is what they came for…)

What makes it a bad movie for developers?

This is a film that is in a particular category of the movies that “I did not see” several times. That means that every time that I could have watched this movie, but I choose to not to, I count +1 time that “I did not see”. This is so bad from a development standpoint that I will list the bad things:

• Even if the virus was indeed powerful, it would not be made to the operating system of the aliens. Unless the Aliens sent beforehand their API.
• It is not because you use a communication channel (in this case, the satellite network) that you need an operating system equal to the one on the communication channel. For example, if you read this post from a Windows PC, know that this site is hosted on Linux.
• Even if you know the operating system of the aliens, the programming language, etc., you still would not have logins and passwords. Just between us, it is difficult to guess 4 PIN numbers someone’s cell, imagine the security protocols of an advanced civilization with telepathic ability …
• And the best: if even the aliens were stupid in terms of computing, even without shields, even with nothing, their ships were vastly more advanced. Even without their full operational systems, they would win. Fact.

Paycheck

A brilliant engineer working on top-secret projects must have his memory erased after them. But on one of these projects, he leaves clues to figure out what it was about and how he can even finish his own invention.

What makes it a bad movie for developers?

For a guy who works on projects to then forget them, he will simply have the same knowledge he had on the begining of such project, maybe even just-out-of-college knowledge. Moreover, his proficiency will always be beginner. Therefore, the subject will never be hired for large projects.

Not to mention the old fallacy of the one-man-project (I call this the Ironman Effect).

(Dis)Honorable Mention

For the last I’ll leave a (dis)honorable mention for perhaps the stupidest scene I’ve ever seen. I think they wanted to make an analogy to the piano scene, from Big… Anyway, this won’t make to this list for being a series:

And with this, I close this post. Sorry guys.