More recently, computer scientists unofficially celebrated Programmer's Day on February 14, and funny cartoons dedicated to this holiday appeared on pages on the Internet. It was devoted to literally everyone who widely uses computer technology in their work, since after the release in 1946 of the world's first computer, an official holiday was not yet invented, during which various official events for “keyboard workers” are held.
Story
In the past decades , programmer's day has been unofficially celebrated in other states. Among computer scientists, two dates are known. One of them is December 10, when the first programmer named Ada Augusta Byron celebrated her birthday. Although she lived in the 19th century, the woman was able to predict the appearance of computers capable of performing calculations, as well as reproducing 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 Web programmer error, which is now assigned the code 404. This day is also associated with the revered Catholics St. Isidore of Seville, who is considered the patron saint of Internet users and programmers.
Informal celebration
Domestic computer engineers celebrated the day of programmer in Russia on April 22, in honor of one of the encodings of this specialty, since then this profession had the code 2204. In the future, the idea of creating a professional holiday for people who could not imagine their own life without a computer was developed in 1996. It was put forward by Dmitry Mendrelyuk, the head of a publishing center called Computerra, proposing to celebrate such an event on the 256th day of the year, which usually falls in mid-September.
Why should a programmer’s day be celebrated on the 256th day? This number was by no means chosen by chance, since this combination is easily expressed using an eight-row byte. On the other hand, this number is the maximum degree of the number 2, which remains less than the total number of days in a year. Moreover, in a typical year, September 13 becomes such a date, but in a leap year , it was planned to celebrate the computer engineer’s day on September 12th.
Only in 2002, Valentin Balt, an employee of one of the popular web studios, managed to organize the collection of signatures for subsequent appeal to the government, so that it recognized the 256th day of the year as the official date of the professional holiday for computer scientists and programmers.
Way to an official celebration
The efforts of Valentin Balt turned out to be successful, since the idea of marking a programmer's day on a set day was supported by a large number of computer users, including a considerable number of programmers. As a result, the first presidential decree, on the basis of which the programmer’s day is celebrated, was submitted to the government in July 2009, and by September 11, Dmitry Medvedev had already made a concrete decision.
The specialists of the Ministry of Communications thoroughly studied the documentation, held the necessary consultations with associations of trade unions operating in the Russian Federation, and consulted with associations of employers Russoft and APKIT. They took into account the importance and role of high-quality software production for the country, as well as the significant contribution of domestic programmers to the development of this industry. So, after the bill was approved by the Ministry of Communications, the president signed a decree, and a new and rather unusual official holiday appeared in Russia.
Now programmers and computer industry employees will be able to celebrate their professional day on the 265th day of the year, as originally planned, since this date was supported by the president and various specialized organizations.