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Advent of Code 2025

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Re: Advent of Code 2025

#251

Post by ryandv »

alexfoo wrote: post #227
deergomoo wrote: post #225

> You don't need a computer science background to participate - just a little programming knowledge and some problem solving skills will get you pretty far. Every time I see this I wonder how many amateur/hobbyist programmers it sets up for disappointment. Unless your definition of “pretty far” is “a small number of the part ones”, it’s simply not true.

Got to agree. I'm even surprised at just how little progress many of my friends and ex-colleagues over the years make given that they hold down reasonable developer jobs.

Why try any more? There are so many fucking frauds in this field.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#253

Post by reddit_clone »

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 have used Raku (Perl 6) with good results.

Common Lisp. Using 'iterate' package almost feels like cheating.

I have done half a year in (noob level) Haskell long ago. But can't find the code any more.

Most mind blowing thing for me was looking at someone's solutions in APL!

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#255

Post by gray_-_wolf »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #231
gray_-_wolf wrote: post #52

I am very happy that we get the advent of code again this year, however I have read the FAQ for the first time, and I must admit I am not sure I understand the reasoning behind this: > If you're posting a code repository somewhere, please don't include parts of Advent of Code like the puzzle text or your inputs. The text I get, but the inputs? Well, I will comply, since I am getting a very nice thing for (almost) fre…

This is not surprising at all, to me. Just commit the example input and write your test cases against that. In a nicely structured solution, this works beautifully with example style tests, like python or rust doctests, or even running jsdoc @example stanzas as tests with e.g. the @linus/testy module.

> Just commit the example input

The example input(s) is part of the "text", and so committing it is also not allowed. I guess I could craft my own example inputs and commit those, but that exceed the level of effort I am willing to expend trying to publish repository no one will likely ever read. :)

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#256

Post by ryandv »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #14

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.

> the global leaderboard had to be pulled.

Frankly I'm better off with it being this way instead of the sweaty cupstacking LLM% speedrun it became as it gained popularity.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#257

Post by yeasku »

Snacklive wrote: post #217
d--b wrote: post #186

Personally, I never understood the grind of the advent of code. This is exactly the kind of stuff I am grateful to be able to delegate to a LLM.

why would delegate to an LLM something that is supposed to be fun. THIS specifically is the kind of stuff you shouldn't delegate to an LLM

Because they are not a hacker, but post on hackernews every day.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#258

Post by yeasku »

ls-a wrote: post #85
sumeno wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like different things

and dislike different things

I mean people use the internet to find people who like similar things.

Why would you use a site called HackerNews if you are not a hacker? No idea.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#259

Post by fud101 »

I've never done this before but honestly I am just turned off by the website and font being hard to read. I get that's the geek aesthetic or whatever, but it's a huge turn off for me.

Re: Advent of Code 2025

#260

Post by randomifcpfan »

jerpint wrote: post #51
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…

I did a post [0] about this last year, and vanilla LLMs didn’t do nearly as well as I’d expected on advent of code, though I’d be curious to try this again with Claude code and codex [0] https://www.jerpint.io/blog/2024-12-30-advent-of-code-llms/

Current frontier agents can one shot solve all 2024 AoC puzzles, just by pasting in the puzzle description and the input data.

From watching them work, they read the spec, write the code, run it on the examples, refine the code until it passes, and so on.

But we can’t tell whether the puzzle solutions are in the training data.

I’m looking forward to seeing how well current agents perform on 2025’s puzzles.

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