A Developer Goes to the Movies

As well as being a full-time software developer, I’m also a huge film buff. I love films from any number of countries, eras and genres. One of my favourite things though, is when Hollywood decide to make a film touching on my day job – that is, a film that’s about software development.

There aren’t very many of these, rather unsurprisingly, considering how dry the topic can be for the “not-we” that make up the majority of a cinema audience.

What I’m going to do in this talk is take you on a whistle-stop tour of film history, looking at many of the films that try to show the rest of the world what our jobs are like.

I’ll be looking at firstly – are they actually good films? But also, how accurate are they? What sorts of social trends informed a portrayal like this?

On this brief odyssey through cinema history we’ll cover:

* The first film to depict a developer. You won’t believe when it’s from and who the actor is!
* How have developers been portrayed differently over the years? Particularly with regard the role of women in tech
* How The Matrix wasn’t the first VR world by near 30 years!
* A 90s cyber-thriller that clearly doesn’t understand the difference between websites and executables
* How AI is very definitely going to kill us all. At least according to any number of old SF action-thrillers
* An old episode of Doctor Who from the 60s that predicted the internet (ok, not Hollywood, but I love Doctor Who!)

This talk won’t help you do your job better, but it might give you a glimpse into how the rest of the world have seen us over the years!