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Advent of Code 2018

adventofcode.com

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Re: Advent of Code 2018

#71

Post by saagarjha »

w4tson wrote: post #70
saagarjha wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not OP, but if I were solving this I’d just take the smallest square less than that number, figure out where it is (the top left or bottom right corner), and then “run” the algorithm from there, which should only require one “turn” at the most. You really don’t need to know anything about spirals in particular; just look for a pattern that you can take advantage of to reduce your work.

You make it sound so easy. Part 2 was the real gnarly bit. Anyway I’m sure I won’t ever encounter that spiral as long as I live but if I do, I have code prepped for it :D

Oh, I didn't see that. The Advent of Code website is strangely annoying in that it makes it extremely difficult to find past problems…

Based on what I found online (which is abridged rewordings of the problem, something of a sequence sum?) I'd get lazy at that point and implement something that makes the spiral. Presumably, this shouldn't take to long, as the sequence grows rapidly so they can't give us a number that's too big…

Re: Advent of Code 2018

#72

Post by keithnz »

netcraft wrote: post #6

I've participated in this the last couple years. It is really well done. The puzzles get progressively harder as the month goes on. I usually try to use a language im interested in but don't have a lot of experience with, but thats even more of a challenge and generally by the 15th or 20th im struggling to find enough time to complete the puzzles, but I try to go back and finish everything eventually. Always learn so…

this is what I like to do too.... it's quite nice for learning languages.

Not quite sure what language I'm going to do this year though

Re: Advent of Code 2018

#73

Post by keithnz »

saagarjha wrote: post #57
Marazan wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never rule out people cheating. Solving it on one account then doing it again in another account

Aside from the other responses mentioning why cheating wouldn’t work, I don’t think it’s out of the question that people can solve these that quickly. The “trick”, from my experience, has been to quickly skim the problem, extract useful information (which you can “learn” to do if you do it enough), and try to figure out how to solve the problem while you are writing boilerplate to set up the problem. Using Python or…

I vaguely remember something from last year or the year before one of them was pretty quick because I could just ask wolfram alpha to solve it:)

Re: Advent of Code 2018

#74

Post by [deleted] »

netcraft wrote: post #67
aleksei wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expound on that? What would you wish to know?

I think the three I mentioned would be a great place to start. - On a scale of 1-10, 1 being you could do it with your eyes closed, 10 being you thought it was nearly impossible, how difficult was this puzzle for you? - Did you learn something new because of this puzzle? Could be something about your language or a library or a new algorithm that helped you solve it. - What language(s) did you use to solve this puzzle…

[deleted]

Re: Advent of Code 2018

#76

Post by [deleted] »

netcraft wrote: post #67
aleksei wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expound on that? What would you wish to know?

I think the three I mentioned would be a great place to start. - On a scale of 1-10, 1 being you could do it with your eyes closed, 10 being you thought it was nearly impossible, how difficult was this puzzle for you? - Did you learn something new because of this puzzle? Could be something about your language or a library or a new algorithm that helped you solve it. - What language(s) did you use to solve this puzzle…

[deleted]

Re: Advent of Code 2018

#77

Post by keithnz »

j1elo wrote: post #62

If you participated in previous editions, how much time did you have to dedicate each day, on average? I've joined similar initiatives in the past, but I always end up giving up because of not being able to keep up the pace of sitting down _every_ day. Yeah one could just solve the problems with some offset delay, or just skip all missed problems, but then it's not fun any more, and I'd wager that the same could be d…

they are not too bad, can get a bit more involved in the later stages ( I usually get too busy right before xmas and end up completing it after new year when I've got some time off), but I often use it as an opportunity ( like quite a few others here it seems ) to learn a new language so end up spending probably more time working out the language, because even if you solve it, you really want to make sure your code is idiomatic

Re: Advent of Code 2018

#78

Post by kingaillas »

saagarjha wrote: post #71
w4tson wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound so easy. Part 2 was the real gnarly bit. Anyway I’m sure I won’t ever encounter that spiral as long as I live but if I do, I have code prepped for it :D

Oh, I didn't see that. The Advent of Code website is strangely annoying in that it makes it extremely difficult to find past problems… Based on what I found online (which is abridged rewordings of the problem, something of a sequence sum?) I'd get lazy at that point and implement something that makes the spiral. Presumably, this shouldn't take to long, as the sequence grows rapidly so they can't give us a number that…

>extremely difficult to find past problems…

Huh? Click [Events], click on the year, click on the day.

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