41–50 of 416 posts
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.
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'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!
Maybe just have a cool advent calendar thingy like a digital tree that gains an ornament for each day you complete. Each ornament can be themed for each puzzle.
Of course I hope it goes without saying that the creator(s) can do it however they want and we’re nothing but richer for it existing.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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!
Eliminating the leaderboard might help. By measuring it as a race, it becomes a race, and now the goal is the metric. Maybe just have a cool advent calendar thingy like a digital tree that gains an ornament for each day you complete. Each ornament can be themed for each puzzle. Of course I hope it goes without saying that the creator(s) can do it however they want and we’re nothing but richer for it existing.
It becomes a race when you start seeing it as a race :) One can just... ignore the leaderboard
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eliminating the leaderboard might help. By measuring it as a race, it becomes a race, and now the goal is the metric. Maybe just have a cool advent calendar thingy like a digital tree that gains an ornament for each day you complete. Each ornament can be themed for each puzzle. Of course I hope it goes without saying that the creator(s) can do it however they want and we’re nothing but richer for it existing.
> By measuring it as a race, it becomes a race, and now the goal is the metric. It becomes a race when you start seeing it as a race :) One can just... ignore the leaderboard
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…
Any recommendations for Go? Traditionally I've gone for Python or Clojure with an 'only builtins or things I add myself' approach (e.g. no NetworkX), but I've been keen to try doing a year in Go however was a bit put off by the verbosity of the parsing and not wanting to get caught spending more time futzing with input lines and err.
Naturally later problems get more puzzle-heavy so the ratio of input-handling to puzzle-solving code changes, but it seemed a bit off putting for early days, and while I like a builtins-only approach it seems like the input handling would really benefit from a 'parse don't validate' type approach (goparsec?).
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).
Example: find the first example for when this "game of life" variant has more than 1000 cells in the "alive" state.
Solution: generate infinite list of all states and iterate over them until you find one with >= 1000 alive cells.
let allStates = iterate nextState beginState # infinite list of consecutive solutions
let solution = head $ dropWhile (\currentState -> numAliveCells currentState Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eliminating the leaderboard might help. By measuring it as a race, it becomes a race, and now the goal is the metric. Maybe just have a cool advent calendar thingy like a digital tree that gains an ornament for each day you complete. Each ornament can be themed for each puzzle. Of course I hope it goes without saying that the creator(s) can do it however they want and we’re nothing but richer for it existing.
> By measuring it as a race, it becomes a race, and now the goal is the metric. It becomes a race when you start seeing it as a race :) One can just... ignore the leaderboard