Computers, technology, and software make the modern world go around – but for every piece of clever software, there’s a programmer (and often teams of programmers) behind the scenes, solving problems with clever code, cloud security solutions, and intense development projects. Spare a thought for these digital pioneers on Programmers’ Day!

International Programmers’ Day is celebrated on the 256th day of the year – chosen because this is the number of distinct values that can be represented with an eight-bit byte and the highest power of two, which is less than 365.

Lots of people celebrate this day on January 7th, which seems to be the original (though unofficial) date for the celebration. In 2009, however, the government of Russia declared the day to be a professional holiday and set the date as September 13th (Sept 12th on leap years)

International Programmers’ Day was launched in 2007 to honor programmers. The day is celebrated in many countries and is officially observed in Russia. 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, which is usually September 13, or on September 12 in leap years.

• 2024: September 12
• 2025: September 13
• 2026: September 13