this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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Advent Of Code
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An unofficial home for the advent of code community on programming.dev!
Advent of Code is an annual Advent calendar of small programming puzzles for a variety of skill sets and skill levels that can be solved in any programming language you like.
AoC 2024
Solution Threads
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 |
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- Keep all content related to advent of code in some way
- If what youre posting relates to a day, put in brackets the year and then day number in front of the post title (e.g. [2024 Day 10])
- When an event is running, keep solutions in the solution megathread to avoid the community getting spammed with posts
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console.log('Hello World')
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I've started with Go, but I think I've realised AoC isn't for me. I feel so incredibly dense.
After solving puzzles and seeing other peoples' elegant solutions while mine feels brutish and ugly (even if our approaches use the same algorithm, mine is inevitably less elegantly-implemented), I also feel too stupid for AoC sometimes.
But hey, I am never going to get less stupid if I don't try, and solving problems the ugly way is still a solution. I have fun doing it.
But if it's not just the comparison to others ruining your fun, if it's that you inherently do not find this activity enjoyable, don't force yourself!
That's fair if you aren't having fun, but I wouldn't write it off completely. Like I only made it to day four last time.
The problems they present are of a totally different class to what most programmers will ever encounter in the "real world."
Once you get more used to the style of the problems (data structures and algorithms (DSA), like what you might see on leetcode), then you honestly start to have fun with them.
I really struggled with DSA until recently, so if you'd like some help I would be happy to give you some pointers.
Thanks. I felt very deflated after struggling with something seemingly so simple. I was using Go and couldn't figure out part 2, at least without nesting loops three layers deep.
Today I decided to try to learn Elixir instead and allowed myself some assistance from Claude.ai, which was much more fun.
Nesting loops is indeed the first intuition anyone would have to that problem. The only reason I knew to use a hashmap data structures is because I practiced on exactly these kinds of problems, and looked up explanations and answers on the most basic stuff imaginable.
Definitely not simple. Especially without training in DSA. You shouldn't expect yourself to spontaneously invent efficient algorithms to problems that have been stumping students for decades.
Try it out yourself for maybe 30 minutes, then do yourself a favour and look up a good explanation to solving it.
My hope for this year is that we can help eachother understand and solve these problems. I'd love to find some good "editorials" on each problem, breaking them down in detail.
Yes, I guess I held myself to too high expectations. I haven't even studied CS and learned programming on my own... I've been trying to do some exercises and a few courses on algorithms but of course that can't be compared to going to university. Thanks for the tip, I won't spend hours in frustration in the coming days for sure. Maybe I should post my attempts even though they are incomplete or fail, to spark discussion.
I would love to see some attempts and discuss alternatives, improvements, etc