Advent of code starts in less than 12 hours!

Programming@programming.dev – 228 points – 10 months ago

For anyone interested, advent of code is about to start! (first puzzles dropping at midnight ET which is in around 11 hours)

We have a community in the instance at !advent_of_code@programming.dev for discussion about the event and that will have solution threads where you can post and compare against other people

Advent of code is a programming puzzle advent calendar where new puzzles drop every day until the 25th. They can be done in any language and puzzles are released on the AoC site

https://adventofcode.com/

Last year I decided to do it in Rust, in order to learn Rust. I found out pretty quickly that you can't just jump from Java/Python/Haskell into Rust and expect to understand what's going on. This year I feel more prepared, so if time permits I'll make it right this time.

Lol, that reminds me of when I was in Uni, I had a systems development class, they taught in C, all the lectures, tutorials and assessments were done in C. Our final assignment was handed out the week the first Rust v1.0.0 build dropped in 2015. I had been following the hype around the development of Mozilla's new language, and I was so keen, I asked my professor if I could complete my final assignment using Rust. He said it's a great idea. Then cut to me furiously trying to learn Rust in just two weeks, so I could even start the assignment, including C interop, implementing functions with c-style interfaces for callbacks, and lots of unsafe blocks for memory manipulation and pointer manipulation. In the end I was just forcing Rust to be C.

It did work in the end, and I did get an A, mostly because the professor couldn't understand any of the Rust code.

Lol. I have a student right now asking to do an assignment is PowerShell. I'm inclined to allow it and probably give them an A because I don't understand PowerShell XD

I sure hope this is not how most CS courses are being taught

You gonna do Rust again?

Yep, I feel a bit more prepared now. I haven't had the time yet today, but from what I saw the first one shouldn't be too hard

Same. I only got through day 3 last year since I didn’t have time to do both the learning and the solving. I think I need a longer term project to give me more focus when learning a new language. This year I’m just sticking with my usual language Elixir, which I always enjoy.

To play, please identify yourself via one of these services: [GitHub] [Google] [Twitter] [Reddit]

Best I can do is [Gitea] [Proton] [Mastodon] [Lemmy]

My favourite advent calendar.
Got a private leaderboard with the other sysadmins from work - as well as a few people from our application/development team.

Is your leaderboard just who solves it first, or is there more to it?

It's basically just a copy of the main leaderboard, but the scores are given based on the size of the group.

Private leaderboards are the best

I don't know that many programmers :/

Is it ok if I skip some challenges or do them later? University final exams are comming up soon for me.

The first Advent of Code was in 2015 and the puzzles can still be accessed.

https://adventofcode.com/2015

yep, you can do them anytime after theyre unlocked and you dont have to do all of them

How hard are the puzzles? I've been coding for a while but I'm self taught and I have no idea whether I'm any good or not. I'd love to give them a shot but I have no idea whether they're totally out of reach or doable. What level of developer are they intended for?

they start out easy and get harder as time goes on. Theyre intended for all levels due to that and theres two different difficulties per day (the harder one being unlocked when you do the easy one). Basically anyone can do day 1

Heres stats for how many people completed each day last year https://adventofcode.com/2022/stats

Ok cool, thank you! I'll see how it goes.

Thanks for the reminder! I almost forgot to set up my repo. 🤦‍♀️ I'll be publishing my solutions on GitHub for anyone interested. This year I finally got around to restructuring things to keep the input files out of git, so I won't have to feel guilty about leaking the problem inputs.

I thought problem inputs were randomized for each user?

There's a limited pool of random inputs, so it's possible to collect them all with enough input samples. In the past, the creator has asked people not to upload their input file because there are bots that scrape GitHub looking for the inputs.

I'm sorry, I think I'm missing something. What's wrong about sharing the inputs? I thought the only thing problematic was to release a solution before the leader-board is full.

In the past, people have stolen the problems to use in their own challenges, coding tutorials, and even commercial projects. The author has asked people to keep their inputs out of git or anywhere publicly searchable.