Programmers' Day - Let's Celebrate
Written by Lucy Black   
Saturday, 13 September 2014

For the I Programmer team, every day of the year is a programmer's day. But the recognized Programmer's Day is the 256th day of the year and in most years that's September 13th.

You'll find that January 7th is also celebrated. This was the date for the first International Programmers' Day when it was launched in 2007, but in 2009 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree for the “Day of the Programmer” to be celebrated on the 256th day of the year.

 

progdaycard1

 

Why this particular day?

The answer is that 256 is the number of distinct values that that can be represented with an 8-bit byte, and 256 is the highest power of 2 that is less than 365, the number of days in a year.


Programmerday1

On its FAQ page the Programmer Day website points out that while some might consider that the above represents 255, as programmers count from zero, it makes it the 256th day since that start of the year.

Programmer Day also makes suggestions for what to do to celebrate.

  • Speak in code (or pseudocode) all day
  • Decorate a tree with zeros and ones to make a binary tree
  • Make Happy Programmer Day cards using ASCII art
  • Have a contest for the best binary pun / programming joke
  • Have a programmer themed cocktail

 

And this infographic from GetSSL.me illustrates some suggestions:

programmerdayinfo

(Source:http://getssl.me/en/programmers-day)

 

Personally I like the cocktail idea and so do others who have devoted a GitHub repository to recipies. Here are just two for you to try.

 

 

Ruby

Python

 20 mL Malibu (coconut liqueur)

  50 mL White Rum
  20 mL Lychee Liqueur   30 mL Mint Liqueur
  40 mL Cognac or Brandy   Juice of Half a Lemon
  150 mL Cherry juice   Sprite or 7 Up
  Ice and Lemon   Slice of lime

 

There are details of how to mix these and other drinks, Perl anyone? more at GitHub's Cocktails for Programmers.

However you decide to celbrate have a good day and share your ideas on our Facebook or G+ Page or better still, leave a comment.

 

 

More Information

Programmer Day website

Cocktails for Programmers on Github

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Last Updated ( Saturday, 13 September 2014 )