PostgreSQL and the Linux kernel sources make great reading materials.

So stereotypical characters, clichéd dialogue, and plot lines on an intellectual level with soap operas?

You may not agree, but I, for one, find it to be unoriginal drivel that swindles a profit from internet subculture.

I agree. It's easy humor. I've worked with a guy that lived in Antarctica for years, a mad dandy, a chef and wine specialist, and a bunch of people who've built interesting and cool things people use every day.

The IT Crowd seems to think that computers don't contribute anything to the world (meanwhile most of the audience is spending their time on a PHP based graphing app) and that 'IT wonks' don't do anything cool.

This is wrong. Half the stuff that most people say changed the world in the last 10 years was made by computer geeks.

It's TV. I have low expectations.

there is brilliant TV: Mad Men, The Wire, Band of Brothers, Deadwood...

those are all dramas, big budget dramas too. I have yet to encounter a 30 minute comedy I would consider brilliant. But this show gets chuckles and the jokes are easy enough for most people to understand, even my non-IT wife understood the Googling Google joke.

No, Arrested development is not brilliant in the same way as The Wire. In fact, nothing is as brilliant as the wire; TV for me was ruined after the wire concluded.

IMHO Brilliant Comedies: 30 Rock, The Office, How I Met Your Mother & It's Always Sunny in Philly

Community is awesome but very early, too.

I am picturing po-faced cowboys of the period watching Deadwood and then whingeing that the dialog isn't realistic.

The show is a (British) sit-com, so the stereotypical characters and cliched dialogue are part of the sit-com package.