Since Peter Norvig has been topical this week, here are his great instructional ipython notebook solutions to last years AoC challenges[1].
[1] http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Advent%20...
Advent of Code 2017
31–40 of 77 posts
Re: Advent of Code 2017
#32Is it a death sentence to try and learn Haskell on this challenge? Or should I go with a language I'm more comfortable in?
Well, I've used previous challenges to learn/improve my Nim. And I can tell you, after solving whole 2015 challenge - my Nim skills have noticeably improved.
Would recommend AoC as a learning tool.
Re: Advent of Code 2017
#33The about page doesn't say: is there a specific language used for these?
> is there a specific language used for these?
There isn't. Some previous tasks could be solved by pen-and-paper, or by using your browser's search on the input, etc.
Also, there were some users who solved each day in a different programming language.
Re: Advent of Code 2017
#34I'll have to come by again tomorrow, but I must say the design of the site is beautiful. The content is immediately clear, and as you look closer it's clear that the author put some very subtle design touches on, but they aren't overwhelming.
Well done!
Re: Advent of Code 2017
#35Advent of Code is an amazing achievement. Designing all the puzzles, writing code to generate all those different inputs for everyone, keeping the site going, somehow managing to create this wonderful community of problem solvers... I loved it last year. I've already paid my AoC++ this year. The least I can do for a month and more (because I never do a puzzle a day, and still haven't finished last year's) of fun. Thi…
> This year I need to make sure I do the graph search problems properly
I'm guessing this year it might be some other 'common theme' for the tasks, and we might not see as many graph-problems as in 2016.
But learning graph searches cannot hurt you either way :)
Re: Advent of Code 2017
#36So, what are people gonna work in? Anything interesting? I am myself thinking about doing the challanges in Powershell. Because why not suffer more on this earth.
I'm thinking on doing them in Rust and Clojure. I've dabbled in Clojure before but nothing serious and I'd like to build up some more familiarity. Rust because it's the first systems programming language that grabbed my attention; plus it's always good to have a varied selection of tools in your proverbial toolbox.
I know that I can probably do them in 10 minutes in Python, but that's not going to be as fun or valuable, especially since I'm not going to be able to compete for the leaderboard due to timezone/work.
Re: Advent of Code 2017
#37So, what are people gonna work in? Anything interesting? I am myself thinking about doing the challanges in Powershell. Because why not suffer more on this earth.
> Anything interesting?
Couple months ago I discovered Nim [1], which I find as an interesting language, and I just finished 2015's tasks as a practice [2].
Now I'm considering using it for this year too. I'll use Python as a fallback, if/when I fail to complete some task in Nim.
Re: Advent of Code 2017
#38While I enjoy advent of code I always have been happy to live on the west coast. I wonder how many people on the east coast don't participate because they'd have to stay up til midnight if they want to score.
How does the scoring work? Is it dependent on speed? Are you penalised for incorrect attempts? What time / timezone are the problems released?
Problems are released midnight EST. First person with a solution globally gets 100 points, second person gets 99, etc. So you have to be one of the first solvers globally to get any points.
Re: Advent of Code 2017
#39So, what are people gonna work in? Anything interesting? I am myself thinking about doing the challanges in Powershell. Because why not suffer more on this earth.
I'm thinking on doing them in Rust and Clojure. I've dabbled in Clojure before but nothing serious and I'd like to build up some more familiarity. Rust because it's the first systems programming language that grabbed my attention; plus it's always good to have a varied selection of tools in your proverbial toolbox. I know that I can probably do them in 10 minutes in Python, but that's not going to be as fun or valuab…
> I know that I can probably do them in 10 minutes in Python
Then you are in the absolute top tier of the people competing. Either that, or you probably belong in this subreddit https://reddit.com/r/iamverysmart ;)
Re: Advent of Code 2017
#40Is it a death sentence to try and learn Haskell on this challenge? Or should I go with a language I'm more comfortable in?
I found Project Euler really helpful for learning new languages, I imagine AoC is similar.