http://www.projectaardvark.com/movie/It features some of your favorite outspoken software evangelists, Joel Spolsky and Paul Graham.
I'm not sure what I'll think of it, because on the one hand they're billing it as a more honest look into the software development process, which should be informative, but on the other hand, the preview hints at a number of the myths computer people like to believe about themselves.
I find myself increasingly upset at the way people in software are portrayed both by the media and by themselves--as idiot savants, socially inept geniuses, lone ranger superheroes, and revenge-of-the-nerds underdogs. It's dangerously delusional, it fosters extreme anti-social behavior, allows for all sorts of irresponsibility and incredibly bad software, continually dissuades women from entering the field, and perpetuates the belief that each hacker can solve any problem alone with complete disregard and disdain for a century of progress and collective knowledge.
How long can we continue duping the world into relying on us to design the heart of every automated mechanism known to man? How long will people continue believing in the myth of the 15-year-old hacker genius while simultaneously decrying the unreliability of software before the cognitive dissonance finally cracks?
At any rate, I don't know if that's where this movie is going. You can only tell so much from a preview. But it should be very interesting, especially about the product lifecycle and management perspectives.
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