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The Day of the Programmer (in Russian: День программиста) is an international professional day recognized in many technology companies and programming firms, that is celebrated on the 256th (hexadecimal 100th, or the 28th) day of each year (September 13 during common years and on September 12 in leap years). It is officially recognized in Russia.
The number 256 (28) was chosen because it is the number of distinct values that can be represented with an eight-bit byte, a value well-known to programmers. 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, employees of Parallel Technologies (a software company). As early as 2002, they tried to gather signatures for a petition to the government of Russia to recognize the day as the official Day of the Programmer.
On July 24, 2009, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media (Russia) issued a draft of an executive order on a new professional holiday, Day of the Programmer.
On September 11, 2009, President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev signed the decree.
