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Advent of Code 2025

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Re: Advent of Code 2025

#31

Post by sunrunner »

fainpul wrote: 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).

My favourite "non-mainstream" languages are, depending on my mood at the time, either:

- Array languages such as K or Uiua. Why they're good for AoC: Great for showing off, no-one else can read your solution (including yourself a few days later), good for earlier days that might not feel as challenging

- Raw-dogging it by creating a Game Boy ROM in ASM (for the Game Boy's 'Z80-ish' Sharp LR35902). Why it's good for AoC: All of the above, you've got too much free time on your hands

Just kidding, I use Clojure or Python, and you can pry itertools from my cold, dead hands.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#32

Post by infamousclyde »

fainpul wrote: 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 used AoC as my jump-off point for new languages. I was thinking about using Gleam this year! I wish I had more profound reasons, but the pipeline syntax is intriguing and I just want to give it a whirl.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#33

Post by JokerDan »

encomiast wrote: post #26
fainpul wrote: 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

This is what is great about it, the community posting hyper-creative (sometimes cursed) solutions for fun! I usually use AoC to try out a new language and that has been fun for me over the years.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#34

Post by jlouis »

fainpul wrote: 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).

Go is strong. You get something where writing a solution doesn't take too much time, you get a type system, you can brute-force problems, and the usual mind-numbing boring data-manipulation handling fits well into the standard tools.

OCaml is strong too. Stellar type system, fast execution and sane semantics unlike like 99% of all programming languages. If you want to create elegant solutions to problems, it's a good language.

For both, I recommend coming prepared. Set up a scaffold and create a toolbox which matches the typical problems you see in AoC. There's bound to be a 2d grid among the problems, and you need an implementation. If it can handle out-of-bounds access gracefully, things are often much easier, and so on. You don't want to hammer the head against the wall not solving the problem, but solving parsing problems. Having a combinator-parser library already in the project will help, for instance.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#35

Post by squigz »

qsort wrote: post #16

I'm actually pleasantly surprised to see a 2025 edition, last year being the 10th anniversary and the LLM situation with the leaderboard were solid indications that it would have been a great time to wrap it up and let somebody else carry the torch. It's only going to be 12 problems rather than 24 this year and there isn't going to be a gloabl leaderboard, but I'm still glad we get to take part in this fun Christmas…

It's really disheartening that the culture has changed so much someone would think doing AoC puzzles just for the fun of it is an unpopular stance :(

Doing things for the fun of it, for curiosity's sake, for the thrill of solving a fun problem - that's very much alive, don't worry!

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#36

Post by ls-a »

holyknight wrote: post #22

I never understood the craze for "Advent of code". Already at this time of the year the last thing I want to do is code even more.

I agree. Didn't these puzzles ruin interviewing for many years now. AI came along and they're still doing it. Some things will needlessly drag on before they die I guess

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#37

Post by kylegalbraith »

Excited to see AOC back and I think it was a solid idea to get rid of the global leaderboard.

We (Depot) are sponsoring this year and have a private leaderboard [0]. We’re donating $1k/each for the top five finishers to a charity of their choice.

[0] https://depot.dev/events/advent-of-code-2025

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#38

Post by riffraff »

fainpul wrote: 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 usually do it with ruby with is well suite just like python, but last year I did it with Elixir.

I think it lends itself very well to the problem set, the language is very expressive, the standard library is extensive, you can solve most things functionally with no state at all. Yet, you can use global state for things like memoization without having to rewrite all your functions so that's nice too.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#39

Post by marc_omorain »

fainpul wrote: 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).

Clojure works really well for AOC.

A lot of the problems involve manipulating sets and maps, which Clojure makes really straightforward.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#40

Post by bhollan »

fainpul wrote: 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 used MATLAB last year while I was re-learning it for work. It did okay, but we didn't have a license for the Image Processing Toolbox, which has a boatload of tools for the grid based problems.
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