Happy Programmer's Day

Programmer's Day is traditionally celebrated on the 256th day of the year. The number 256 is chosen because it is the number of numbers that can be expressed using one byte (from 0 to 255).

We all chose this profession in different ways. Someone came to her by chance, someone chose on purpose, but now we all work together on one common thing: we are creating the future. We create wonderful algorithms, make these boxes work, work and work again, giving people new professions and opportunities for self-expression ... Giving people the opportunity to communicate with each other, earn a living ... We create for people some - now completely invisible - part of reality, which has become so familiar and inalienable part of our life, as if it had become a law of nature. Think for yourself: is it possible to imagine a world today without the Internet, smartphones, computers? Whether it's a virus writer or a programmer of children's toys ... Each of us has changed someone's life ...

If you think about it, we create from nothing, and our material is thought. Our canvas is the program code in our favorite language. And this language is a way of projecting thought. The way to talk. That is why we have so many languages: we are all different and we think differently. But first of all, we are creators. As writers who, creating worlds in their works with their laws, properties and deeds, enliven the reader’s imagination, our worlds arise in a certain bundle of machine and person, becoming for each of us something more than the text of the program.

.

We create virtual worlds: each of us, in our own heads, builds a virtual world of the program that we are developing: types, objects, architecture, interconnections and interaction of individual components. When we think about algorithms, we mentally run it, make sure of its performance and create its projection - in the form of text in our favorite programming language. This projection transforming into a compiler turns into a stream of machine instructions for the virtual world of the processor: with its own rules, laws and loopholes in these laws ... If we are talking about virtual machines such as .NET, Java, python, then we create an additional layer of abstraction: the world of a virtual machine possessing laws other than those of the operating system within which it operates.

Some of us are looking for loopholes in these laws, virtualizing the processor, simulating virtual machines, simulating the entire system so that the program launched in this new virtual world doesn’t notice anything ... and study its behavior, looking for ways to crack it ... Other programs catch them, virtualizing the environment at the level of the operating system and identifying them according to various criteria. And then the hunter becomes a victim, for the victim only pretends to be it.

Still others immerse people in virtual worlds instead of programs: develop games and social networks. Games are two-dimensional, three-dimensional, with glasses and helmets of virtual reality, means of transmitting tactile information: they all capture us, make us forget about real reality, making it boring, not so spectacular. And social networks: on the one hand, for some, they replace real communication, tearing a person out of society, out of life. But for many they open the world, provide an opportunity to get acquainted, communicate, make friends with people around the world, save from loneliness.

The development of technology and the Internet is pushing us back to the issue of privacy and publicity. This issue becomes relevant for everyone: not only for politicians or stars. Each Internet user leaves a digital footprint in it. "Big Brother" is no longer a science fiction term. Now that social networks know more about us than our closest friends and relatives ... But what is there: ourselves ... The issue of privacy and privacy is no longer a question of philosophy. This is a question to be afraid of, beware ... And sometimes - create artificial personalities.

I am both anxious and scared. I both want and fear what we are creating, but I know one thing: regardless of our relationship, the world is becoming more and more complex, multifaceted, virtual, interesting. And this is our merit.

I congratulate all of us on the Day of Builders and Architects of Virtual Worlds, in which all of humanity will live for the next centuries. Happy Programmer's Day.