[jolmg]

On a related note, I've noticed several manga and anime that focus on a career/profession in such a way that they seem to be geared toward encouraging youngsters to take it up. I would think they do a good job of it, at least, because I finish them with a new respect for and knowledge of whatever profession the story was about.

An example of this is the manga Act-Age that explores acting, or the anime Shokugeki no Soma for cooking, or Yakitate!! Ja-pan for bread baking.

Stories like these sometimes involve some kind of realistic, profession-related "superpower", like the protagonist in Act-Age being very talented at method acting, and the protagonist in Yakitate!! Ja-pan having optimally warm hands that allow him to knead dough better.

Is anyone working on something similar for programming or can recomend one? A story that involves programming that is realistic (as in no magic, etc, but can be exaggerated to a point) and that a reader can learn significantly from?

[iraldir]

Thumbs up for Yakitate Japan, whoever hasn't read / watched it should immediately. Unfortunately I am not sure a similar thing can be done for programming himself. I mean what would that be like? "hehe, you'll never managed to win that hackathon, you software use way too much memory! Oh but what are you doing, instantiating your class in your export statement... Masaka!" "Sono masaka desu. SINGULUTON desu!" // main character clicks the compile button 5 second before the deadline, and thanks to his nakama optmisation of the webpack build using cache, it manages to compile in time. "So you managed to use a little trick to make your memory under the maximum allowed, but you will need more than that to beat me, the Prince of Functional Programming" // Judge arrives, try the application of the oponents, gives him perfect score as expected,then goes on to the hero. He doesn't even understand the code just by looking at it. But then as he try to open the application, he realises that actually, he implemented the form in WEBU GEE ELU, and he's blown away by the quality of the interface, giving the hero higher than the maximum score."

Scratch that, I would watch the fuck out of that show.

(initially I was gonna say it could be more about the business side i.e silicon valley but damn did that thing write itself)