Social Network wasn't bad...

I saw the movie 'The Social Network' it wasn't bad, I especially appreciated the scenes at the beginning where they talk about apache configurations and different techniques to acquire what you want from a web server. Also, while some people might miss it, I appreciated the complete obsession the character had for his creation, from hardly sleeping, to constantly checking stats. It truly embodied what I feel as a developer when I am in the midst of a project. Nothing else matters only what you have done so far and what is left to do. 

That being said I think it paints Mark Zuckerburg as more of a programming genius than he really is. I don't personally know Mark, but given Facebooks humble beginnings I look at what they have done and often think "I could have easily done that" and there are some cases where I did do something before Facebook, but given the small scope it went virtually unrecognized.

It should be noted that though he may not be a genius from a technical standpoint, Mark definitely showed, in the early days, that he could make a product that people wanted. There in lies his genius, or luck maybe. Facebook in the early days was fun to use, easy to understand, and exclusive. All of these things have absolutely nothing to do with the underlying code, so painting Zuckerburg as some kind of coding guru because he made these sites I feel is a misrepresentation. He could have very easily been an idea man, had someone else do the code work, and still achieved the same result.

I think if you are a programmer you will appreciate this movie more than the average person, because you will be able to recognize that this is a case of the American dream come to life. You will see that if you can figure out what people want, then you can be the next Mark Zuckerburg. As a programmer that gives me great hope, though it is probably a one in a million chance.