Advent of Code

Writing about my experiences with Advent of Code has become something of a yearly tradition for me, and while 2020’s entry has lapsed into 2021, I am here to continue the tradition all the same! In a year otherwise marred by difficulties for so many people on so many fronts, it was nice to have the distraction of programming puzzles for an hour or so each December evening. My only goal this year (in addition to completing all the puzzles) was to try and leverage some of the new C# 9.0 functionality such as record types. These were useful but haven’t quite made it into my “muscle memory” yet, so it’s hard to reach for new features when you’re racing against the clock. ...

Another year, another Advent of Code event completed! I’ve blogged before about participating in the 2018 event and catching up on the 2015, 2016 and 2017 events, so I thought I would keep the tradition going by sharing my experience with the 2019 event that has recently finished. This blog assumes a certain level of familiarity with Advent of Code - if you don’t know what it is, check out the website or one of my previous blog posts. ...

Earlier this year I posted about my experience participating in Advent of Code 2018. For those who aren’t familiar, Advent of Code is (to quote the website): an 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. On each December day leading up to Christmas all players are presented with an identical puzzle that requires programming to solve. Puzzles have two parts, the second of which is only provided after successfully completing the first. The second part compliments the first in a variety of ways, such as extending the program to deal with additional scenarios or by altering the input in a way that tests the performance limits of the code. ...

I recently participated in Advent of Code 2018. Overall it was a very positive experience and I thought I would share some thoughts about the whole thing (albeit a lot later than intended!). I learnt about Advent of Code less than 24 hours before the 2018 event (the fourth of its kind) began, after it was shared with me by a friend who has participated in previous years. My first thought was of other programming challenges such as Project Euler and Kattis, both of which I’ve trialled briefly in the past. After reading some of the puzzles from previous years I was also reminded of the “problem solving competitions” I participated in back in my school days - simple questions that tested basic logic, mathematics and reading comprehension. A such I was instantly hooked - not just for the puzzles themselves, but also the promise of a month long commitment that would allow me to procrastinate on all the things I should have been doing to finish the year! ...