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Thoughts Macguff the Code Reviewer

When it comes to books, television, and film - I've always been able to immerse myself in the story thanks to a big healthy dose of suspension of disbelief. Once a law, fact, or property is stated, I'll happily accept it at face value and move on for the sake of enjoying the experience. But anytime I see code - I immediately pause to review it to see if it makes any sense.

Personally, I’ve never understood why TV shows and movies show the “actual” code on screen for a couple of seconds. I don’t really feel like it adds much to the realism of the show, as the people who know how to code - can see that its BS, while people who don’t know how to code won’t even know what they’re looking at and really won't care.

After re-watching Elementary again, I realized that I had a small catalogue of goofs from a few TV shows, and I think it would be fun to examine and evaluate some of those in depth.

Out of Scope

I won’t be covering memes which are done to death, but I also can't not show the best example from NCIS.

I also won't cover shows/movies which intentionally show the ridiculousness of fake hacking. Shout out to Super Troopers and Red Dwarf.

I also won’t be covering Mr Robot. That show is amazing, and their technical consultants crush it. So, while it’s not perfect, it’s definitely the standard bearer

I Love These Shows

Really important thing to end on, I’m not just finding these examples on Buzzfeed or whatever. They’re from shows that I watch, re-watch, and really enjoy, so none of this is intended to insult the shows themselves. It’s just a bit amusing, as whenever code pops up on screen, I always pause to examine it. I just can’t help it. I wish I could, but I can't...

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