Russia's New Official Holiday — Programmer's Day 306
Glyn Moody writes "Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, has decreed a new holiday for his country: Programmer's Day. Appropriately enough, it will be celebrated on the 256th day of the year: September 13th (September 12th for a leap year). Do programmers deserve their own holiday ahead of other professions? Should the rest of the world follow suit?"
Seems odd... (Score:2, Interesting)
Probably not ahead of scientists/math./engineers (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably not ahead of scientists/mathematicians/enginneers. But still, pretty cool.
And can't but think it will be yet another forgotten day - secretary's day, siblings day, etc. All exist, all forgotten. Every day is proclaimed something and the novelty wore off or never caught on. Probably the only novel thing would be to have a "regular" day where nothing is officially remembered/celebrated/commerated/pissed_on/whatever.
Re:At least... (Score:5, Interesting)
By calling it "national service" day, rather than "terrorists kicked our ass and now we have to act like idiots" day, we take the day back in some small way.
Re:Yes. (Score:3, Interesting)
List of professions that I think are probably more deserving of their own holiday:
Of course, some of these are sorta already commemorated by labor day, and I would have also put farmers on the list if most weren't just corporate farms these days. I also thought about including inventors (it'd be nice for encouraging kids to be creative and laud ingenuity) but I'm not sure it's so much an occupation as it is a hobby/lifestyle.
Re:In honor of Programmer's Day (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry if my post came across as a 'Youre a commie!' type of comment. :)
However, they were extremely stern taskmasters. What do you think happened to people who did not work, worked less, or decided they wanted to quite their job and do something different? I'll give you a hint: It was a hell of a lot worse than getting fired or making less money which is what happens when you skip work in the USA. When you completely remove incentives to excel the only way anything gets done is if you punish people who do not do what you tell them. Basically they treated workers like slaves.
However, you are correct that they won over working class Russians in the beginning with wild promises that they could not possibly have kept.
Re:At least... (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought we were drumming up support for another try....
Re:In honor of Programmer's Day (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, it's not all black and white here. The idea was to eliminate worker extortion. A concept you might know from not being able to quit when the working condition / pay ration becomes unbearable.
Their attempt obviously failed. But the spirit was undoubtedly a good one. (As it usually is.)
Their main faults were to think that "everyone is equal", while some still were "more equal" than others. Thereby again creating the old hierarchy, or "boss paradise".
(Originally, those "more equal" were just there to manage the transition, and then dissolve. Which for reasons of basic human behavior never happened.)
We must accept, that humans first think of themselves. Even when we give, we do so, because it feels good to us, and because we follow our goals. If your goal is to make someone else big, and that makes you happy, you still do it for yourself. So this does not mean it is bad. And as for being egoistic, being the opposite of altruistic sacrifice, I can just quote someone I do not like very much, but who is right:
“It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.” — Ayn Rand
So my solution (yes, I thought about this quite a bit) is very simple: In such a new "company", everyone can work for multiple people and let multiple people work for him. So it's not a hierarchy anymore, but a free graph. Which means that not only a boss can prefer one of his employees, but an employee can prefer one of his bosses. Or in proper non-biased terms: A service provider and a money provider, or two service providers, (two money providers would be strange, but thinkable), have equal freedoms. If one of your "bosses" offers a crappy deal, you can say no, and take a better one. Just as he can take a better one than you. You don't have to have any long-term contracts (although you can). You can simply work on a project basis.
This would not have been possible, two decades ago. But with computers being ubiquitous, the whole contract-, "self-employment"- and tax management, can be automated. Even as a service.
I'd try that. Even if just to see the flaws, and fix them.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Interesting)
A Russian grandpa is asked how often he drinks vodka. He replies "Not very often, only when it is a holiday or after a sauna. For example what holiday is it today?" It appeared that no one could recall any holiday today. The grandpa ponders "Hmm sounds like a good day to go to a sauna"
Re:Yes. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, if you want to look at it like that, then almost anyone can be considered a teacher. Heck, I used to tutor other students after school at the library when I was in high school. Now, as part of my current web development job, it's my responsibility to teach our new high school intern the ins and outs of web development and graphic design. However, I don't think that puts me on the same level as a career teacher.
Don't get me wrong, as a programmer myself and one who's learned immensely from other programmers, I have tremendous respect for the programming profession. In fact, I think the FOSS movement is a tremendous credit to the programming community. The concept of open source, which began in software development and spread out to other fields, is proof that programmers are ahead of the herd when it comes to public collaboration and sharing knowledge.
That said, however, I think the academic community still has an edge on us in that regard. In fact, the FOSS movement has its roots partly in the academic ideals of free exchange of knowledge and information. And even though many professional programmers do "teach" in some small capacity, it's not quite the same as the computer programming professor who's dedicated his life to teaching. I mean, just because you give your child cold medicine when he's sick, or put a band-aid on his knee when he scrapes it, that doesn't make you a doctor or put you on the same level as medical professionals whose job it is to treat the sick and save lives.
Re:In honor of Programmer's Day (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're that easily replacible, then sure.
Yes, but it's not about the precious unique snowflake that (you may believe) you are, it's about most workers, most of which are indeed replaceable. You know, the larger picture.
Re:It is usually celebrated by... (Score:3, Interesting)
I went to the ACM finals in 2000 as a backup team member/assistant coach and, after talking to people from various teams, I think there are 2 important reasons for their success.