On September 11, 2009, the President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree drafted by the Ministry of Telecoms and Mass Communications establishing Programmers' Day as a new official holiday in Russia.
In accordance with this document, Russia will now celebrate Programmers' Day on the 256th day of the year – September 13 (or September 12 during a leap year). The number 256 was chosen as it is the number of integers that can be expressed with one eight-bit byte. It is also the maximum power of 2 that is less than 365 (the number of days in a year).
For many years, this date was marked as an unofficial holiday across the world for anyone working in the programming sphere. Now Russia has declared it an official holiday which underlines the national significance of the software development sphere, as well as programmers' great contribution to innovative R&D in Russia.
2002–2024