Today, the 256th day of the year, is Programmer’s day!

The curious non-programmers might wonder, like I did, “Why day 256?”. The official answer is because the standard binary system of 8-bits in a byte, with power of 2, allows to produce 256 different values (0b11111111 !). If you have no idea what I’m talking about, grab a coffee with a programmer and they can attempt to provide you with an enlightening explanation!

These computer wizards called programmers, developers, coders and software engineers are very much a part of many companies’ life nowadays, tech or not, and scientific publishing is no exception. Technology, and the programmers behind it, permitted a couple of decades ago the unprecedented digital sharing of science to the world and continues to make open access and open science more accessible and more open.

Programmers are scripting this revolution with new peer-review platforms, researchers networks, data repositories, altmetrics and apps. The fact that Frontiers was awarded the ALPSP award for Innovation in Publishing in 2014 is certainly a tribute to the incredible work of our programmers and engineers.

At Frontiers, we embrace innovation and the people who help achieve it. While we are celebrating our own programmers today, we encourage you to take yours out for a coffee, a slice of pie or cake, and a laugh, to thank them for their incredible, mostly silent, “digital” contribution to your life.