Happy Programmers Day!

Today we’re celebrating Programmers’ Day. This day is celebrated on the 256th day of each year, which means it’s usually celebrated on the 13th of September unless it is a leap year, then it’s celebrated on the 12th of September.

If you don’t know about this yet, you’re probably wondering… Why exactly the 256th day of the year? This is because 256 is the number of distinct values that can be represented with a byte (8 bits) and it’s also the highest power of two that is less than 365, the number of days in a common year.

The celebration was first proposed in 2002 by Russian programmers Valentin Balt and Michael Cherviakov from Parallel Technologies, who collected signatures in hope that the Russian government would declare a “Programmers’ Day“. However, it was not until 2009 that the Russian Ministry of Media and Telecommunications finally announced the official celebration in honour of the programmers.

As programmers, we are used to working with many programs, even though we don’t really know who was behind them. Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, Linus Torvalds, Dennis Ritchie, Bill Gates, Alan Cooper, and Richard Brodie are some of the many programmers whose work has had a significant impact on our lives. Today we wanted to honour their special contribution to society.

And at Plain Concepts, we want to celebrate along with our 270 programmers, whose work help us build and create solutions through code. In order to thank them for their incredible work, we have made a video collecting moments of some of our colleagues doing what they’re passionate about, whether it is from our offices, at events or, due to the current situation, at home. Wherever we are what doesn’t change is our passion for technology. 

Whether you are a programmer or not, we encourage you to celebrate this day because every day they’re helping build and improve our future.

Happy 256th!