Programmer's Day, 13 September 2026: History, Facts and Records

13 September 2026 · Day 256 of the year

Programmer's Day

A holiday for the people who write the code, keep banking systems running and make sure the Buy button works the first time. N-SHOES congratulates developers with 20% off everything in the catalogue.

Women's shoes Men's shoes

One day only -20%

On all footwear for IT professionals

Valid on 13 September 2026, online and in the N-SHOES store. Full terms are further down the page.

Happy Programmer's Day

What does it take to succeed as a programmer? Patience, attention to detail and a brain that runs without crashes or reboots.

We wish you all three, plus luck and love. Luck helps when the task gets hard, love keeps you curious enough to build something new. May your builds pass on the first try, production stay quiet, and a Friday evening deploy stop scaring anyone.

The date in 2026

Sunday, 13 September 2026.
2026 is not a leap year, so day 256 falls on 13 September.
In leap years the holiday moves to 12 September.
In Ukraine it remains an informal professional holiday.

Why the 256th day

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

8 bits = 1 byte. Eight positions give 2⁸ = 256 distinct values, from 0 to 255.

A number with no strings attached

256 is tied to no person, company or occupation code. It is a purely technical constant that any developer anywhere recognises, which is exactly why it became the symbol of the profession.

2⁸

The last power of two that fits

256 is the largest power of two that still fits inside a calendar year. The next one, 512, runs well past 365 days.

0…255

A familiar range

The same interval shows up in RGB colour codes, in IPv4 addresses and in the data type most languages call byte or unsigned char.

A short history of the craft

The milestones without which today's IT industry simply would not exist.

1843
Ada Lovelace publishes her notes on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, including an algorithm for computing Bernoulli numbers. It is regarded as the first computer program ever written.
1936
Alan Turing describes an abstract computing machine, laying the theoretical foundation for everything we now call programming.
1947
On 9 September a moth is taped into the Harvard Mark II logbook after jamming a relay. The note beside it cemented bug and debugging in the professional vocabulary.
1957
John Backus and his IBM team release Fortran, the first high-level language to reach mass adoption. COBOL follows two years later.
1969
Margaret Hamilton and her MIT team write the onboard flight software for Apollo 11. She is the person who popularised the term software engineering.

1972
Dennis Ritchie creates the C language. Its syntax is still recognisable in C++, Java, C#, JavaScript, Go and Swift.
1991
Linus Torvalds releases the first Linux kernel. It now runs the vast majority of servers and every Android phone.
2002
Employees at a software company propose marking the profession on the 256th day of the year and start collecting signatures for official recognition.
2009
The holiday receives official state status for the first time, outside Ukraine. Here it stayed informal, and no less widely celebrated.
2021
Ukraine launches the Diia.City legal regime. Together with the Diia app it becomes the emblem of the country's digital state.

Facts worth knowing

The first bug was literal

The moth in the Harvard Mark II relay is the only bug in history you could remove with tweezers. The logbook page is kept as a museum piece.

The first programmer was a woman

The Ada language is named after Ada Lovelace and still powers systems in aviation, rail and defence engineering.

Hello, world!

The tradition comes from the C programming manual by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie. Every new language since has been greeted the same way.

Apollo 11 flew on 4 KB of RAM

The mission computer had roughly 4 KB of working memory and 72 KB of fixed memory. A single photo on your phone weighs thousands of times more.

The Y2K problem

Saving two characters in a date field cost the world economy hundreds of billions of dollars in audits and rewrites. A lesson about technical debt that still applies.

Standing up

Stand-up meetings exist so they stay short. The side effect is that developers spend more of the day on their feet than they think, and their shoes notice first.

Records in programming

48+

years in space

Code launched aboard Voyager 1 in 1977 is still executing more than 24 billion km from Earth. The longest-running production system ever built.

2 bn

lines of code

Roughly the size of Google's single repository, one of the largest known codebases on the planet.

100M+

developers

Accounts registered on GitHub, the world's largest collaborative development platform.

1959

the year COBOL was born

A language older than most of the people using it still runs core banking ledgers and government registries.

Ukrainian IT in numbers

Through the war the sector has stayed one of the pillars of the economy, keeping services, payments, connectivity and defence tech running.

420k

specialists in IT and defence technology

4,300

companies resident in Diia.City

169k

people employed by Diia.City residents, per Ministry of Digital Transformation data for 2026

20% off for IT professionals

When. 13 September 2026, from opening hours in store and until midnight online.

Who. Developers, testers, DevOps and QA engineers, analysts, interface designers and system administrators.

How to confirm. A company badge, a work email, a GitHub or LinkedIn profile is enough — show it to the consultant or add the link in your order comment.

Promo code. Enter CODE256 in the cart at checkout.

Limits. The discount does not stack with other promotions and does not apply to items already marked down.

What to wear to work

Leather sneakers — for days that go from home to office to a client meeting.
Loafers and dress shoes — for interviews, conferences and demos.
Suede trainers — a lighter option for the coworking space and weekends.
Mid-season boots — September in Kharkiv is unpredictable and feet should stay dry.

Browse the catalogue

Questions and answers

When is Programmer's Day in 2026?

13 September, the 256th day of a non-leap year. In leap years it is marked on 12 September.

Why 256?

One byte holds eight bits and can take 2⁸ = 256 values. It is also the largest power of two that does not exceed the number of days in a year.

Does the discount cover every brand?

Yes, it applies across the whole catalogue except for items that already carry a promotional price.

Is it online only?

No. Use the promo code online or claim the discount at the N-SHOES store in Kharkiv.

N-SHOES online shoe store

N-SHOES has been trading since 15 August 2009. Over that time we have built a catalogue where Polish factories sit alongside Ukrainian workshops and global sports labels: Rylko, Simen, Lonza, Nessi, Allsy, Anna Lucci, our own N-SHOES Fabio line, plus Reebok, Joma and DC Shoes.

We stock women's and men's footwear in genuine leather and suede: dress shoes, loafers, sneakers, trainers, ankle boots and mid-season or winter boots. Every product page lists the size range, insole length, sole height and lining type, so you can choose a pair without guessing.

We deliver across Ukraine and accept card payment or cash on delivery. If the size does not fit, exchanges and returns follow the Ukrainian Consumer Rights Protection Act.

Why customers choose N-SHOES

17 years in footwear retail and a physical store in Kharkiv.
Natural materials: leather, suede, nubuck, leather lining.
Exact insole measurements in every product description.
Size consultation before you place the order.
Seasonal ranges: mid-season, winter, summer and office classics.

Go to the catalogue

2025-09-13 00:01:00

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