Dmitry Medvedev declares official holiday in Russia: Programmer's Day

http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/09/russias-new-holiday-programmers-day.html

by martincmartin • 17 years ago

80 34 17 years ago

opendotdotdot.blogspot.com

bcl• 17 years ago

Do we all get the day off?

ahlatimer• 17 years ago

You should. It's Saturday.

emilis_info• 17 years ago

Caturday? Then why does my clocks show it's Sunday?!

ruslan• 17 years ago

Medvedev has been witnessed using macbooks and is internet savvy guy.

cesare2• 17 years ago

Most of the people I know who use macbooks can't tell an ethernet cable from a shoe string, let alone a bit from a byte. :-)

Disclaimer: Mac/Linux user here. And my main machine is a macbook (actually a MBP).

tlrobinson• 17 years ago

You could easily replace "MacBooks" with "Windows" in that sentence and it would still be true.

dchest2• 17 years ago

It's kind of different in Russia: you have to know about Apple, Macs are harder to find (only recently Apple Russia began installing tiny Mac booths in large computer stores), there are no ads (except for iPhones), iPods are not popular. 99.9% of people don't know about Apple.

cturner• 17 years ago

With macs you don't need to know the difference between a standard ethernet cable and a crossover cable, but I don't think they've extended the web as far as shoe strings yet.

socmoth• 17 years ago

"The number 256 is chosen because it is the number of integers that can be expressed using a single eight-byte"

is the translation off or is this really what they said?

iamaleksey• 17 years ago

The translation is a bit off - the original text is correct. But these are not Medvedev's actual words anyway.

dchest2• 17 years ago

Original says "eight-bit byte".

sigizmund3• 17 years ago

Translation sucks. It literally says that "this is a number of integers which can be represented by one eight-bit byte" although it doesn't sound as stupid in Russian (but it still does).

snitko3• 17 years ago

I am so not impressed when politicians and government start doing something meaninglessly nice to any of the industries, because this is so full of shit. Like who cares about programmer's day? Do you? A best any programmer can do to please himself professionally is to write a great piece of code.

Unfortunately, these sort of things are used by politicians all over the world to make an illusion that they care and are doing something when in reality they do not. And unfortunately some smart people also buy it.

pyre• 17 years ago

I would rather they do something like this than start creating all sorts of subsidies to particular industries (or even worse, particular 'industry leaders').

snitko3• 17 years ago

I don't see any connection between these two things. They may as well do both at the same time. The difference is that making someone's day is meaningless and useless to those this day has been made for.

vaksel• 17 years ago

hey if secretaries get their own day, why not programmers?

snitko3• 17 years ago

Yeah, and why not anyone else? You'll soon be out of days in year if you're going to give them away that easily. So make sure you only give one to those, who have not voted for you already.

vijayr• 17 years ago

Seems to me, the only people who benefit from these "days" are the greeting card companies.

Programmers day greeting card, anyone?

sigizmund3• 17 years ago

Ah common, what's wrong with the fact that Mr Medvedev actually points out that this industry is important for the country?! You can easily replace Medvedev with, say, Her Majesty (and Russia with the UK) and the idea remains the same.

zaidf• 17 years ago

Hacker Day would've been better.

sharjeel• 17 years ago

"In Soviet Russia, Programmer's day is a holiday"

ilyak• 17 years ago

Keep in mind that it's not a day off, just a holiday as in "notable calendar date".

frig2• 17 years ago

Medvedev's office:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2453/3714584029_6d37f5a64e_o....

Oval Office:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/01/21/us/21obama5-6...

Popota2• 17 years ago

Medvedev has 2 mice?

mattyb• 17 years ago

And 2 keyboards and 2 monitors.

frig2• 17 years ago

Discussion I saw said it's two computers: one for public internet one for the high-security gov network (with no physical connection). Apparently that's the norm for very-high-security government setups.

maxfromua• 17 years ago

of course - 2nd for SS-18 targeting U.S. :)

Dmitry Medvedev declares official holiday in Russia: Programmer's Day

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