I congratulate all Russian programmers on the Programmer's Day, which is celebrated every 256th day of the year (255th from scratch). This date falls on the 12th of September in the leap year, and on the usual 13th of September.
Taking into account the state significance of software development in improving the quality of life of the population, ensuring high rates of sustainable economic growth, the Ministry of Communications met the wishes of domestic programmers.
Programmer's Day is already the official holiday of programmers for 10 years. The number 256 (28) is chosen because it is the number of numbers that can be expressed by one byte. Also, the number 256 in the hexadecimal numbering system is represented as 100 (0x100). It is also the maximum degree of number 2, which is less than 365. In non-leap years, this holiday falls on September 13, and in leap years on September 12.
Programmer's Day in Russia is also celebrated on April 22. Occurrence of this date is directly connected with coding of a speciality 220400 (the Software of the computer technics and the automated systems). However, according to the new classification, in Russia the specialty of "Software of ВТ and AC" has a code 230105.65 - there was an occasion to celebrate Programmer's Day on January 23.
Also some people consider the date to be the Programmer's Day:
July 19 is the day the first program was written by Augusta Ada Lovelace, the first programmer and daughter of George Byron. This program was designed to calculate Bernoulli's numbers on the analytical machine of English mathematician Charles Babbage. Note that the first programmer was a woman.
December 10 - birthday of the first programmer Ada Lovelace (1815), after whom the first universal algorithmic programming language Ada was named, which was approved just December 10, 1980.
April 4 - 4.04, by analogy with error 404 ("this page is not found"). It is considered to be the day of web programmers.
July 26 - in honor of the first ever accusation against the creator of a computer virus. In 1989, on that day, a student, Robert Morris, was prosecuted for creating and running a computer worm named after him.
In Ukraine, since the time of FidoNet, it has been customary to celebrate the day of the programmer on "Friday, the 13th".
In general, Russian programmers know how and do more, so they deserve their holiday. I will tell you the story, ten years ago there was a case.
Specialists of one Russian scientific center worked under a contract with an American company. A task came from abroad - to conduct test tests of a new compiler (the program and testing methodology were transferred) and a week later to present the results. The Americans get a report on the work done in due time: "We analyzed the compiler's work and testing methodology and found them very far from being perfect. According to our calculations, the program's performance can be increased by 20-30%. The specialists have already started upgrading the compiler which will be completed in a month. Two more weeks later we will give you the debugged program and the report on its testing".
Many Russian recruitment agencies note that one of the problems of employment of domestic developers abroad is their too high scientific and technical level of training. To be more precise, not high, but "not corresponding to real requirements". They know more than the programmer needs, but are not aware of many things necessary for work. We, as before, train scientists capable of solving unique problems, rather than technologists who ensure the work of serial production. Technologists in relation to programming - from the point of view of the expression "programming is a technology". The technology, on the other hand, implies the creation of a clear division of labour and adherence to rather strict standards and rules. Not to mention the distribution of responsibilities within groups of programmers, today in separate categories of specialists there are testers, technical writers (documentation), employees of technical support. And usually in small firms it is necessary to pull all this economy itself.
P.S. Even Blog Day is celebrated on August 31, as the word Blog is similar to the numbers 3108, which is presented as this date.