Day of the programmer - a modern professional holiday

Until recently, computer scientists unofficially celebrated the Day of the programmer on February 14, and on the pages on the Internet there appeared funny caricatures dedicated to this holiday. It was dedicated literally to everyone who uses computers widely in the workplace, since after the release in 1946, the world's first computer was not yet invented an official holiday, during which various official events for "keyboard workers" are held.

History

In the past decades, the day of the programmer was unofficially celebrated in other states. There are two dates among computer specialists. One of them is on December 10, when the first programmer named Ada August Byron celebrated her birthday. Although she lived in the nineteenth century, the woman was able to predict the emergence of computers capable of computing, as well as reproduce graphics and sound, and introduced the terms "cycle" and "working cells".

In the Catholic world, keyboard and mouse employees solemnly celebrated their professional holiday on April 4, in honor of the emerging error of the Web programmer, who is still assigned code 404. This day is also associated with the revered Catholics Saint Isidore of Seville, considered patron of Internet users and programmers.

Unofficial celebration

Domestic computer specialists celebrated the day of the programmer in Russia on April 22, in honor of one of the encodings of this specialty, since then this profession had code 2204. In the future, the idea of creating a professional holiday for people who do not think their own lives without a computer, was developed in 1996. It was put forward by Dmitry Mendrelyuk, who heads the publishing center called Computerra, proposing to celebrate such an event on the 256th day of the year, which usually falls on the middle of September.

Why should the programmer's day be celebrated on the 256th day? This number was not chosen by chance, since this combination is easily expressed with the help of an eight-byte byte. On the other hand, this number is the maximum power of figure 2, which remains smaller than the total number of days in a year. And in an ordinary year this date is September 13, but in a leap year the computer programmer's day was scheduled to be celebrated on September 12th.

Only in 2002, Valentin Balt, a member of one of the popular web studios, managed to collect signatures for the subsequent appeal to the government, so that it recognized the 256th day of the year as the official date for the professional holiday of computer programmers and programmers.

The way to the official celebration

The efforts of Valentina Balta were successful, since the idea to celebrate the day of the programmer on a given day was supported by a large number of computer users, which included a considerable number of programmers. As a result, the first decree of the president, on which the programmer's day is now celebrated, was submitted to the government in July 2009, and by September 11, Dmitry Medvedev had already made a specific decision.

Specialists of the Ministry of Communications thoroughly studied the documentation, held the necessary consultations with associations of trade unions operating in Russia, consulted with employers' associations Russoft and APKIT. They took into account the significance and role of the sphere of high-quality software for the country, as well as the significant contribution of domestic programmers to the development of this industry. So, after the approval of the bill by the Ministry of Communications, the president signed a decree, and in Russia a new and rather unusual official holiday has appeared.

Now programmers and employees of the computer industry will be able to celebrate their professional day on the 265th day of the year, as planned initially, since this date was supported by the president and various profile organizations.