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Happy Programmer Day!

netbuzz writes "As made-up holidays go, today's event – Programmer Day – doesn't get the attention or respect of, say, SysAdmin Day or Talk Like a Pirate Day. (One exception appears to be Russia, where 'Programmers' Day' has been 'officially recognized' since 2009.) Yet programmers and their fans are taking to public forums, if not in droves at least in growing groups, to give coders their due respect."

7 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Is there an error in first time the date is use by Mister+Fright · · Score: 3, Informative

    According to this guy, it's 256th in our calendar because we're starting at an index of one. If we start at a zero index, it would be 255. Careful with that off-by-one error.

  2. ITS A TRAP! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    You start to read the summary, you feel appreciated. Things are going well.

    And then....

    where 'Programmers' Day' has been

    UNMATCHED QUOTES!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

  3. Re:So you wanted to be... by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 2

    The things they did do, they did wrong. They found bugs. They found ways to circumvent all of your carefully constructed system rules and validations. Not because they were master hackers or brilliant technicians...but because they were just stupid. They clicked on things they shouldn't click on. They typed things in that they shouldn't type in. They didn't read simple instructions. They didn't listen in training. They were personally insulting you by being terrible at using your software.

    In a field labeled "Enter the number of specimens:" they typed "five specimens."

    In a field labeled "Social Security Number:" they typed "he doesn't have one because he is an illegal."

    Instead of using the button labeled "Create New Patient Record:" they kept changing the information in a single patient record over and over and saving it.

    <sigh> not a lot more needs to be said, does it?

  4. Re:Happy Programmers Day by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 2

    I'm trying to enter the field. In the last few months I taught myself XML, CSS, XHTML, HTML and AU3 (AutoIT). I'm currently in the first twenty pages of a book on Python and its like pulling teeth

    Now all you need to do is learn some programming languages.

  5. Duplicated day. by julesh · · Score: 2

    They should do their research before inventing things that duplicate things that already exist. Most professions have a day dedicated to them simply because most professions have a patron saint, and all saints have a day allocated to them by the Catholic church.

    In the case of programming, the relevant saint is Isidore of Seville, whose saint's day is 4th of April.

  6. Bob Ross - Happy little programmer painting class by future+assassin · · Score: 4, Funny

    A little crimson white and just use the brush to paint in those Happy Little Programmers with white hats here and there. Just layer them for a nice contrast. You can also paint some Happy Little Programmers with black hats using midnight back for some real contrast.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Ross

    --
    by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
  7. Less Deserved by excelblue · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Having been both a sysadmin and programmer, I have to honestly say that while sysadmin day is deserved, programming day isn't. There's just simply much more to sysadmins that are underappreciated when compared to programmers:

    * Sysadmins setup routine systems that are built by programmers (who usually get the credit).
    * Sysadmins only get (negative) attention when something goes awry.
    * There's usually no mention of sysadmins anywhere.
    * Unless you are very technical, you probably don't even know that sysadmins exist!

    In contrast, programmers have it nice in the sense that when they do a good job, they are seen as the heroes who created the system. People go to programmers for feature requests in addition to bug reports. Their names are usually listed in an about dialog or readme file somewhere. Also, unless you are completely technically illiterate, you know that someone has to create the software.

    The final bit: the infrastructure will crash and burn without sysadmins, but without programmers, it'll just cease to advance.

    Having a Programmer Day in addition to Sysadmin Day is like having an Executive Day in addition to Labor Day: unnecessary, unjustified. In both cases, the former already has the glory on a daily basis that the latter is hugely lacking.