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Advent of Code 2024

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Re: Advent of Code 2024

#481

Post by [deleted] »

xyproto wrote: post #405
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #380

I love AoC! Did it the last 2-3 years in Rust, hanging out in a discord where we all try to make the absolute fastest solutions. Learnt all kinds of crazy performance hacks and some advanced algorithms & SIMD that way. This time I'm trying to do them in Rust and Golang in an effort to either learn to like/tolerate Golang (because we use it at work) or prove my hypothesis that it sucks and never use it unless I have t…

Go (not "Golang") has better compilation times than Rust and does not try to combine incompatible ways of using concurrency. I have the opposite dilemma to you, I want to learn to like Rust.

[deleted]

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#482

Post by williamdclt »

sureglymop wrote: post #270
ljm wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I re-read the intro and the fact it mentions leetcode and the like was enough for me to decide that it's an ultimately pointless endeavour for me. I have no interest at all in competitive programming or maths; I spend 40+ hours a week doing programming for work, I want games and challenges that pull me away from that so I continue to have a life outside of my job.

How about something creative that is at the same time relaxing? Some time ago I started creating mods for the game stardew valley. It still involves some programming but mainly drawing, creating animations and composing music! It's an absolute blast and so relaxing (like the game itself). I think by now I could even start working on my own game but I don't yet have a desire to.

Not the OP but as someone with the same mindset as them:

Sounds very fulfilling, but I explicitly want to stay as far away from tech as possible outside of working hours. I'd much rather draw and compose music outside of any tech environment.

Plus, creative hobbies are an amazing way to connect with people, it's half the reason I like them. Tech hobbies are going to make me connect with tech people which isn't what I want: I meet enough tech people at work, I'd end up talking about tech (languages, frameworks, software, AI...) outside of work which have no interest in, and I don't really relate to tech people anyway (as a sweeping statement that obviously isn't an absolute)

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#483

Post by rnewme »

ghjfrdghibt wrote: post #477
miningape wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you cannot pass This is his entire point: getting to this brick wall is _where_ the real learning happens. When you start scrambling, reading old stackoverflow posts, and breaking out the calculus text book you're pushing the boundaries of what is possible for you. Body builders don't grow by watching other people lift weights.

Agree to disagree. Don't see any difference with finding the answers on SO, or in textbooks, and having an AI provide the same. And at the start, novice body builders will of course watch other body builders to learn how it's done. Unless you're exceptional you're not teaching yourself anything unless it's by learning from others. Few are the pioneers in any field.

How do they become pioneers? By digging into the body of knowledge. They know what books and authors are good, what blogs to read, they posted questions on SO. They don't search for direct answers, but instead they search for the knowledge that allowed the person who made the question to make the question, and person who found solutions to find the solution.

Looking how it's done doesn't equal you doing it. It's apples to oranges. OP was referring to needing to do work in the gym to get results. You didn't get results if you looked at others and did the same in the advent of code etc. You are merely entertaining yourself, but you are not competitive participant. With that approach you'll never be on top.

There are people who use frameworks and people who write frameworks. The first group struggles when there is no official documentation or tutorial on a topic they need. The second group when faced with the same goes through the source code and gets the answers.

Bottom line is the question of what you want to achieve - just go through the problems and be done with them, or deep dive into new topics ans material, to widen your knowledge?

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#485

Post by setopt »

MattRix wrote: post #106
setopt wrote: post #100

The tiny thin gray font on black background is impossible to read on a mobile device :(

On iOS you can switch to Reader view, and I imagine Android has something similar.

I tried that, but it broke all navigation links (including to the actual exercises).

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#486

Post by ghjfrdghibt »

rnewme wrote: post #483
ghjfrdghibt wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree to disagree. Don't see any difference with finding the answers on SO, or in textbooks, and having an AI provide the same. And at the start, novice body builders will of course watch other body builders to learn how it's done. Unless you're exceptional you're not teaching yourself anything unless it's by learning from others. Few are the pioneers in any field.

How do they become pioneers? By digging into the body of knowledge. They know what books and authors are good, what blogs to read, they posted questions on SO. They don't search for direct answers, but instead they search for the knowledge that allowed the person who made the question to make the question, and person who found solutions to find the solution. Looking how it's done doesn't equal you doing it. It's appl…

I don't see much to disgree with in what you're saying. Were clearly talking about different things.

What happens when you dig in and exhaust all your best efforts and still don't find a solution? Are you a lost cause because you couldn't figure it out for yourself? Or are you allowed to be shown the way it's done so you can learn from that?

Many times in my life have I not been able to figure something out for myself, and needed shown how the thing was done. Just because I couldn't do it on my own doesn't mean I wasn't capable of either doing it once shown, or that by being shown I didn't learn anything.

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#487

Post by smcl »

beacon294 wrote: post #217
smcl wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in CET so time-wise it can be ok - problems open at 6am meaning if I get up I have about an hour around before I need to walk my walk my dog and get ready for work. But switching on at that time is really hard, the amount of stupid off-by-one errors, or referring to since-renamed-but-still-present functions in my Jupyter Notebook is not even funny. But I luckily managed to avoid the "reusable AoC library" problem…

What if you don't get up?

If it's a work day and I don't wake up on time, I'll pick away at it over the course of the day - usually I'll get a chance to think about it on my tram ride to work and complete it at lunchtime

If it's a weekend I'll just do it at my leisure at some point during the day when I have some time - maybe head to a nice cafe or something.

I'm nowhere near the top 100 - closest has been iirc top 200 a few years back - so it's not like I need to start at 6am.

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#488

Post by smcl »

Kwpolska wrote: post #276
smcl wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in CET so time-wise it can be ok - problems open at 6am meaning if I get up I have about an hour around before I need to walk my walk my dog and get ready for work. But switching on at that time is really hard, the amount of stupid off-by-one errors, or referring to since-renamed-but-still-present functions in my Jupyter Notebook is not even funny. But I luckily managed to avoid the "reusable AoC library" problem…

I'm in CET too, and 6:00 is not an hour where I’m awake, and if I were, my brain functions would definitely not be at a level where I would be capable of coding. Midnight would be much more acceptable.

I think you'd be surprised - you'll definitely be capable of coding at that hour. But like me you'd just also be quite capable of making daft mistakes :D

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#489

Post by zelphirkalt »

whalesalad wrote: post #403
makapuf wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interested by your rust speed approaches, care to share a link ?

Same. I am doing rust + clojure this year. Very interested in performance hax, esp around SIMD. I know absolutely nothing at all about rust, this is my first time working with it. My day 1 rust solution: cargo solve 1 -- release Finished `release` profile [optimized] target(s) in 0.05s Running `target/release/01` Part 1: 1189304 (95.8µs) Part 2: 24349736 (120.4µs) Day 1 clojure solution: lein run 1 running all tasks…

Are the timings with language runtime startup, or only the procedure calls of the actual code?

Re: Advent of Code 2024

#490

Post by zelphirkalt »

Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #352
bargainbin wrote: post #348

Ah here it is again, 25 days of writing increasingly complex input parsers.

Those are the problems I loathe the most, where the real problem is figuring out how to parse the input into something more workable. Once its parsed its ezpz.

Are you solving all puzzles? I find usually that the parsing isn't my problem, but some of the puzzles puzzle me (ha, couldn't resist), because they expect some kind of graph knowledge or some mathematical trick or so. Last year got stuck at day 17 for example. Usually some learning in it then, but parsing, while possibly annoying day after day, wasn't usually what stopped me from completing puzzles.
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