Programmer's Day, also known as the Day of the Programmer, is an international professional day that is celebrated on the 256th (

hexadecimal Hexadecimal (also known as base-16 or simply hex) is a Numeral system#Positional systems in detail, positional numeral system that represents numbers using a radix (base) of sixteen. Unlike the decimal system representing numbers using ten symbo ...

100th, or the 2⁸th) day of each year (September 13 during

common year A common year is a calendar year with 365 days, as distinguished from a ''leap year'', which has 366 days. More generally, a common year is one without Intercalation (timekeeping), intercalation. The Gregorian calendar, used by the majority of ...

s and on September 12 in

leap year A leap year (also known as an intercalary year or bissextile year) is a calendar year that contains an additional day (or, in the case of a lunisolar calendar, a month) compared to a common year. The 366th day (or 13th month) is added to keep t ...

s). The number

256 Year 256 ( CCLVI) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Claudius and Glabrio (or, less frequently, year 1009 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 256 for this y ...

(2⁸) was chosen because it is the number of distinct values that can be represented with a

byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

, a value well known to

programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

s. 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 The Russian Government () or fully titled the Government of the Russian Federation () is the highest federal executive governmental body of the Russian Federation. It is accountable to the president of the Russian Federation and controlled by ...

to recognize the day as the official Day of the Programmer. On July 24, 2009, the

Ministry of Communications and Mass Media (Russia) The Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, often abbreviated as ''Minkomsvyaz'', is a ministry of the Government of Russia responsible for telecommunications, media and the post. History The Min ...

issued a draft of an executive order on a new professional holiday, the Day of the Programmer. On September 11, 2009,

President of Russia The president of Russia, officially the president of the Russian Federation (), is the executive head of state of Russia. The president is the chair of the State Council (Russia), Federal State Council and the President of Russia#Commander-in-ch ...

Dmitry Medvedev Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev (born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician and lawyer who has served as Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia since 2020. Medvedev was also President of Russia between 2008 and 2012 and Prime Mini ...

signed the decree.

Chinese Programmer's Day

In China, the programmer's day is October 24, which has been established for many years. The date was chosen because it can also be written as 1024, which is equal to 2¹⁰ and corresponds to the Ki

binary prefix A binary prefix is a unit prefix that indicates a multiple of a unit of measurement by an integer power of two. The most commonly used binary prefixes are kibi (symbol Ki, meaning ), mebi (), and gibi (). They are most often used in inform ...

. It is also a consistent date regardless of leap years.

Official recognition

Chinese Programmer's Day

References

Sources

See also