Pop culture: pseudocode

Self-tutoring about pop culture: the tutor begins about how computer science ideas have penetrated everyday life.

I watch soap operas with my wife. One evening a few years back, we were watching an episode where two computer experts (on the show) were trying to hack into some site. The hack wasn’t working, so far.

One of them said he would check the underlying code of the routine they were using: “Oh, it’s been compromised. I’ll rewrite it in pseudocode,” he commented. He seemed to type a few lines. “We’re in,” he continued. The scene continued as the two characters bent in close to look at the screen of the laptop.

“I’ll rewrite it in pseudocode” was, I’ll assume, meant to be ironic, since pseudocode is meant for human consumption rather than computer. Therefore, a routine written in pseudocode would be almost certain to fail.

I’ve listened more carefully to that soap opera ever since, but never noticed such a questionable line as that one. I wonder how many other people noticed it.