The most interesting part is that they even bothered to take source code that is loosely related to security stuff and not just took any source code that came across their way.
The ridiculously precise progress bar may actually be a case of "reality is unrealistic": if you produced a quick-and-dirty progress bar by just printing a float, without bothering to trim the precision, you'd get something like that.
I'll confirm this. When I make scripts for some SCADA recipe handling, I make sure to output with at least 7 sig-figs and ETA in DDD HH:MM:SS.###. (Properly formatted, though.)
It's not useful, but it's technically true, the overhead and development is negligible, and it amuses me. "See? It's super sophisticated just like that progress bar in the movies!" Incidentally, it also makes it easier for operators to accept the computer is busy and just wait a minute.
I used to pause Person of Interest http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/ to look at the code which made no sense at all and stopped following the stupid series.I am sure I am not the only one .It's not a bad thing to pay attention to detail.
I pause PoI, too, but find the results more amusing than off-putting (one episode had a genius kid writing some overblown mega-compression code, but the snipped that marvelled the main character was basic C file munging).
I don't really mind abstracting anything high-level and taking shortcuts -- it's hard enough watching someone navigate a web browser in real life ("Ctrl-L, goshdarnit!"), I certainly wouldn't want to watch them go through the search results in a TV series. Just like every OP scene boils down to one dramatic event, not hours of meticulous work.
I just get riled up when the basic computer operation is totally unrelated to the real world, because by now people kinda know how a computer works, it's not the early '80s anymore. Two people typing on one keyboard, 3D views etc.
One thing I've accepted by now is the useless display of data when searching. Non-matching ugshots flashing on screen and the like. A progress bar just isn't very exciting.
(Actually, if it wouldn't slow down the actual operation, more real-life interfaces might benefit from something like this.)
You're an outlier though. Making the code look authentic means burning through valuable time and money on a special effect their viewers almost certainly won't know enough to care anything about. It's just not worth the effort for anything more than "something that looks like code."
Whenever I find myself geeking out like this, I try to think of what it must have been like for a geologist to watch Star Trek TOS. The rocks were all foam and all the same. I didn't care a bit.
I've always thought of POI as having above-average tech related consistency compared to other public network US shows.
Some of it still makes me cringe, but when you put it into the perspective of their general audience it does seem, to me, that it's more complex than 95% of said audience can understand. Additionally, I haven't noticed many blatantly stupid/irrelevant errors in the shows technospeak. It's all generally, vaguely, sorta legit.
I mean, I am not seeing any gooey interfaces in visual basic yet (ignoring the typical beep-boop flashy computer interfaces).
On the other hand, its 2013 not 1983. A lot more people today are at least casually familiar with code. Saying unrelated technical words could unwillingly make your movie a joke.