Did you realize that today is Programmer Day? No? So discover why it's today and what to do about it!

Hang on, we last celebrated Programmer Day on September 13, 2011 - so why has it come early this year? The answer, of course, is that 2012 is a leap year and Programmers' Day is the 0x100th day of the year, or the 256th day in common currency. With,  January 1 counted as 0 this makes Programmer Day September 13 if it isn't a leap year, and September 12 if it is.

We all like a good excuse for a holiday and, according to Wikipedia, Programmer Day is recognized as an official professional holiday in Russia after a decree to that effect was signed by Dmitry Medvedev on September 11, 2009.

This fact isn't recorded on the Programmer Day website which tells us that it is "the unofficial holiday for programmers" and provides the date of 2007 as when it started.

One part of the myth that we propagated last year - that programmer's wear white on this day - is no longer on Wikipedia. So what should we do?

If you are in Bielsko-Biała, Poland there is an event organized by Selleo at which programmers plan to:

network with friends and participate in Lightning Talks [in which] everyone will have a chance to provide some interesting insights about his/her work, life, development projects, company or anything he/she would like to share with the rest of the participants

Suggestions on the Programmer Day site are to:

• Speak in code (or pseudocode) all day
• Decorate a tree with zeros and ones to make a binary tree
• Have a contest for the best binary pun or programming joke

And here's a sample joke from the Twitter feed:

 

 

Feel free to share this article complete with our Programmer Day poem:

 

We would certainly like to hear your jokes and if you have any plans you wish to share do let us know, or Tweet with #programmerday.

More Information

Programmer Day

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Happy Programmers' Day

 

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