Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Advent of Code 2024

adventofcode.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 580 posts

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#141

Post by ruuda »

matsemann wrote: post #126
orra wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds sensible. It's important to set boundaries, and enjoy time off. For me Advent of Code is a slippery slope. The difficulty ramps up so at first it's easy, then it's rewardingly difficult. But then before I know it, it takes wayyyyy too much time. The danger is being emotionally invested by then.

There's a graph here of the "hardness" of each day/task, based on how long the 100th place on the leaderboard used. https://aoc.xhyrom.dev/ So it's not linear, and also based on your own knowledge. So perfectly fine to skip some days and still it's possible to solve some of the next ones!

Cool, it would be nice if that one aligned the days which were on weekends, as those tend to have harder problems.

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#143

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

atribecalledqst wrote: post #83

Last year I got stuck on Day 12 for a full week, and thinking about how to solve it consumed my every waking moment. I think this year, I'm going to be kind to myself and not participate so I can really enjoy the winter break from work.

It ate my life for a few years in a row, I even managed to finish on Christmas eve twice. Now I don't even look, it turns from fun to stress rather quickly.

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#144

Post by fleeno »

I usually get stuck about halfway through and give up.

Doing it in a Lisp I’ve been writing in Ruby will have me giving up even sooner, but it will be fun!

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#145

Post by acomjean »

sailorganymede wrote: post #86
neonsunset wrote: post #78

I can't explain why but doing AoC is always interesting, and doing LeetCode which is supposed to be similar is always very depressing. Wishing everyone a fun challenge. This year I will be practicing F# and hope some of you will give it a try too :) https://github.com/neon-sunset/AOC24/blob/master/day1.fsx

AoC would be more stressful if you had to solve a problem in 30 minutes for a highly competitive job.

those exist. except I think the one I did was an hour(? it was ten years ago). I got the interview, but that didn't go well, so I went to work elsewhere.

they have part of the site that has lessons for developers:

https://app.codility.com/programmers/

I haven't used it for a long time, but they also have contests with some small prizes: https://app.codility.com/programmers/challenges/

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#146

Post by anonu »

Barrin92 wrote: post #82
tmountain wrote: post #3

It feels like AI will shape a lot of the submissions for these types of coding “traditions”. But, I guess that’s just the world we live in.

The global leaderboard is so fast that any AI assistance would literally slow them down, here's one of the guys who tends to score highly solving today's puzzle. ( https://youtu.be/ym1ae-vBy6g ), and on the more complicated days that's even more pronounced because anyone who is even somewhat decent doesn't need to ask chatgpt how to write Dijkstra. Obviously if you're doing it recreationally you can cheat with AI but…

Python looks excruciatingly slow to me. If you want fast I believe you need to think and write in vector languages like kdb+/q. I am not a kdb+ expert by any means and my code can probably use more q primitives, but here was my solution in ~2 minutes:

  i1:("I  I";" ")0: `:1.txt;
  sum {abs last deltas x }each flip asc each i1 / answer 1
  sum {x * sum x = i1[1]}each i1[0] / answer 2

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#147

Post by Cruncharoo »

NamTaf wrote: post #72

I've never done AoC but I've done other programming-related challenges before. I come from a non-IT background (mech eng), and I'm currently away for work for the first several days with only their locked-down laptop. Normally I'd break out Python for this, but given the constraints maybe I should try to see how far I can get through this in Excel. It'd be a fun little challenge :)

I use Excel for the first few as well! I actually find it to be easier than using Python/Javascript, at least early on.

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#148

Post by schneems »

matsemann wrote: post #126
orra wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds sensible. It's important to set boundaries, and enjoy time off. For me Advent of Code is a slippery slope. The difficulty ramps up so at first it's easy, then it's rewardingly difficult. But then before I know it, it takes wayyyyy too much time. The danger is being emotionally invested by then.

There's a graph here of the "hardness" of each day/task, based on how long the 100th place on the leaderboard used. https://aoc.xhyrom.dev/ So it's not linear, and also based on your own knowledge. So perfectly fine to skip some days and still it's possible to solve some of the next ones!

> So perfectly fine to skip some days and still it's possible to solve some of the next ones!

You try telling that to my brain. That guy doesn’t listen to me.

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#149

Post by moomin »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #143
atribecalledqst wrote: post #83

Last year I got stuck on Day 12 for a full week, and thinking about how to solve it consumed my every waking moment. I think this year, I'm going to be kind to myself and not participate so I can really enjoy the winter break from work.

It ate my life for a few years in a row, I even managed to finish on Christmas eve twice. Now I don't even look, it turns from fun to stress rather quickly.

Only year I ever completed it it took eight months.

I’m not seeing my name on a leaderboard any time soon.

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#150

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

moomin wrote: post #149
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It ate my life for a few years in a row, I even managed to finish on Christmas eve twice. Now I don't even look, it turns from fun to stress rather quickly.

Only year I ever completed it it took eight months. I’m not seeing my name on a leaderboard any time soon.

Oh yeah, me neither. The competition is far too intense. What takes me hours takes the competitors minutes.
Post reply on HN