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Advent of Code 2025

adventofcode.com

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Re: Advent of Code 2025

#23

Advent of Code is one of the highlights of December for me. It's sad, but inevitable, that the global leaderboard had to be pulled. It's also understandable that this year is just 12 days, so takes some pressure off. If you've never done it before, I recommend it. Don't try and "win", just enjoy the problem solving and the whimsy.

While is „only“ 12 days, are like 24 challenges. As no leaderboard is there, and I do it for fun, i will do it in 24 days.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#24
post #20

Opinion poll: Python is extremely suitable for these kind of problems. C++ is also often used, especially by competitive programmers. Which "non-mainstream" or even obscure languages are also well suited for AoC? Please list your weapon of choice and a short statement why it's well suited (not why you like it, why it's good for AoC).

I’ve been doing them is JS and Common Lisp. I recommend the problems to help learning new languages.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#25
post #20

Opinion poll: Python is extremely suitable for these kind of problems. C++ is also often used, especially by competitive programmers. Which "non-mainstream" or even obscure languages are also well suited for AoC? Please list your weapon of choice and a short statement why it's well suited (not why you like it, why it's good for AoC).

Kotlin, because it’s a language I like

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#26
post #20

Opinion poll: Python is extremely suitable for these kind of problems. C++ is also often used, especially by competitive programmers. Which "non-mainstream" or even obscure languages are also well suited for AoC? Please list your weapon of choice and a short statement why it's well suited (not why you like it, why it's good for AoC).

It was mind-boggling to see SQL solutions last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42577736

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#27
post #20

Opinion poll: Python is extremely suitable for these kind of problems. C++ is also often used, especially by competitive programmers. Which "non-mainstream" or even obscure languages are also well suited for AoC? Please list your weapon of choice and a short statement why it's well suited (not why you like it, why it's good for AoC).

I've always done it in a Scheme. Generally to learn a new compiler and its quirks.

Scheme is fairly well suited to both general programming, and abstract math, which tends to be a good fit for AoC.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#28
post #20

Opinion poll: Python is extremely suitable for these kind of problems. C++ is also often used, especially by competitive programmers. Which "non-mainstream" or even obscure languages are also well suited for AoC? Please list your weapon of choice and a short statement why it's well suited (not why you like it, why it's good for AoC).

For some grid based problems, I think spreadsheets are very powerful and under-appreciated.

The spatial and functional problem solving makes it easy to reason about how a single cell is calculated. Then simply apply that logic to all cells to come up with the solution.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#29
post #24
post #20

Opinion poll: Python is extremely suitable for these kind of problems. C++ is also often used, especially by competitive programmers. Which "non-mainstream" or even obscure languages are also well suited for AoC? Please list your weapon of choice and a short statement why it's well suited (not why you like it, why it's good for AoC).

I’ve been doing them is JS and Common Lisp. I recommend the problems to help learning new languages.

I respect the effort going into making Advent of Code but with the very heavy emphasis on string parsing, I'm not convinced it's a good way to learn most languages.

Most problems are 80%-90% massaging the input with a little data modeling which you might have to rethink for the second part and algorithms used to play a significant role only in the last few days.

That heavily favours languages which make manipulating string effortless and have very permissive data structures like Python dict or JS objects.

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