Programmer's Day is traditionally celebrated on the 256th day of the year. The number 256 was chosen because it is number numbers that can be expressed using one byte (from 0 to 255).
We all chose this differently. Someone came to it by chance, someone chose it on purpose, but now we are all working together on one common cause: we are creating the future. We create excellent 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 such a familiar and integral part of our lives, 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. Way to speak. That is why we have so many languages: after all, we are all different and we think differently. But first of all, we are creators. Like writers who, creating in their works worlds with their own laws, properties and deeds, enliven the reader's fantasy, our worlds arise in a certain combination of a machine and a person, becoming for each of us something more than a program text.
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We create virtual worlds: each of us builds in our head a certain virtual world of the program we are developing: types, objects, architecture, interconnections and interaction of individual components. When we think about algorithms, we mentally run it, make sure it works and create its projection - in the form of text in our favorite programming language. This projection, being transformed by the 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 like .NET, Java, python, then here we create an additional layer of abstraction: the virtual machine world , which has laws that are different from the laws of the operating system within which it works.
Some of us look for loopholes in these laws by virtualizing the processor, simulating virtual machines, simulating the entire system so that the program running in this new virtual world does not notice anything ... and studying its behavior, looking for opportunities to break it ... They are caught by other programs by virtualizing the environment at the operating system level and identifying them according to various criteria. And then the hunter becomes a victim, because the victim only pretends to be one.
Still others immerse people in virtual worlds instead of programs: they 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 up the world, provide an opportunity to meet, communicate, make friends with people around the world, and save them from loneliness.
The development of technology and the Internet makes us return to the issue of privacy and publicity again. This question becomes relevant for everyone: not only for politicians or stars. Each Internet user leaves his own digital footprint on it. "Big Brother" is no longer a science fiction term. Now, when social networks know more about us than our closest friends and relatives... Why, we ourselves... The issue of privacy and private life is no longer a matter of philosophy. This is a question that you should be afraid of, beware of ... And sometimes - create artificial personalities.
I am both trembling and scared at the same time. I simultaneously want and fear what we create, but I know one thing: regardless of our attitude, 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 mankind will live for all subsequent centuries. Happy Programmer's Day.
Source: habr.com