Most television about people who work with computers is rubbish, and I say that as someone who works with computers and is therefore exactly the wrong audience to please. The hacking is nonsense, the screens are green for no reason, and somebody always types furiously to "boost the firewall". Fine. It's drama. I've made my peace.
So I wasn't ready for the show I watched this week, which got the texture of the job uncomfortably right. Not the technology, the texture. The standup that's somehow longer than the work. The ticket that's been reassigned four times because nobody wants to own it. The senior person who solves the crisis in ten minutes and then spends two hours in a meeting about why the crisis happened.
The bit that actually got me was a scene where a character fixes something, can't fully explain why it works, and decides not to mention that part to anyone. I have lived that scene. We have all lived that scene. The fix holds, the cause stays murky, and you write a confident commit message that papers over the doubt.
It's a small thing, but it's the difference between writing about IT and writing about the people doing it. They clearly had someone in the room who'd held a pager. I noticed, and I appreciated it, and I'm slightly worried about how seen I felt.