Programmer's Day, also known as the Day of the Programmer, is an international professional day that is celebrated on the 256th (hexadecimal 100th, or the 28th) day of each year (September 13 during common years and on September 12 in leap years).
The number 256 (28) was chosen because it is the number of distinct values that can be represented with a byte, a value well known to programmers. 256 is also the highest power of two that is less than 365, the number of days in a common year.
Official recognition
This particular day was proposed by Valentin Balt and Michael Cherviakov (aka htonus), employees of Parallel Technologies (a software company). As early as 2002, they tried to gather signatures for a petition to the government of Russia to recognize the day as the official Day of the Programmer.1
On July 24, 2009, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media (Russia) issued a draft of an executive order on a new professional holiday, the Day of the Programmer.23
On September 11, 2009, President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev signed the decree.45
Chinese Programmer's Day
In China, the programmer's day is October 24,6 which has been established for many years.7 The date was chosen because it can also be written as 1024, which is equal to 210 and corresponds to the Ki binary prefix. It is also a consistent date regardless of leap years.
Sources
- Президент Российской Федерации. Указ №1034 от 11 сентября 2009 г. «О дне программиста». Вступил в силу 11 сентября 2009 г.. Опубликован: "Российская Газета", №172, 15 сентября 2009 г.. (President of the Russian Federation. Decree #1034 of September 11, 2009 On the Day of the Programmer. Effective as of September 11, 2009.).
See also
- Computer programming portal
References
«Праздник 256-го дня» https://archive.today/20120630150913/http://www.vecherka.ru/articleprint/4847 ↩
«У программистов может появиться свой официальный праздник» Archived 2009-09-28 at the Wayback Machine http://minkomsvjaz.ru/news/xPages/entry.8809.html ↩
"Ъ-Новости - Российские программисты получат профессиональный праздник". Kommersant.ru. Archived from the original on 2012-06-30. Retrieved 2011-09-13. https://archive.today/20120630150922/http://www.kommersant.ru/News/1210696 ↩
"Dmitry Medvedev issued an executive order establishing a new professional holiday, the Day of the Programmer". Kremlin.ru. 2009-09-12. Archived from the original on 2010-09-16. Retrieved 2009-09-12. Day of the Programmer will be celebrated on the 256th day of each year, that is on September 13 or 12 depending on whether the year is a leap year. https://web.archive.org/web/20100916182426/http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/text/news/2009/09/221572.shtml ↩
"Президент России подписал указ об утверждении Дня программиста". Archived from the original on 2012-07-11. Retrieved 2011-07-18. https://archive.today/20120711020648/http://minsvyaz.ru/ru/news/index.php?id_4=40366 ↩
"中国程序员节，10月24日，你同意吗？". Retrieved 2018-02-05. http://www.cnblogs.com/cmt/archive/2010/10/08/1845636.html ↩
"中國將10月24日 暫定為 程式設計師節(非官方認定) Tsung's Blog". blog.longwin.com.tw (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Retrieved 2018-07-02. https://blog.longwin.com.tw/2015/10/10-24-programmer-holiday-2015/ ↩