Advent of Code

Advent of Code is an advent calendar of programming problems for December.

I finished Advent of Code 2016 in Python (which I’m learning), and now I’m going through 2015. So far, 2015 is much easier!

This thread is a spinoff from the previous forum’s Weekend Coding thread.

Private leaderboard:

[SuperPichu](http://forum.frontrowcrew.com/discussion/comment/553845/#Comment_553845) Also that advent calendar thing is fun. I just finished the first day. I made a leaderboard. `111686-e01a629f` is the join code

Last post on previous forum:

[sK0pe](http://forum.frontrowcrew.com/discussion/comment/554833/#Comment_554833) I must have missed that post, anyways, I added myself.

I tried doing yesterday’s solution with an iterative deepening DLS but retreated to the more familiar BFS. I still think if I go back to it and rewrite the algorithm looking for the min string length I could get it to work. I’m also almost sure that it requires less code than the BFS, however I can’t just go on a hunch.

Doing these in Python kind of makes me appreciate how easy and necessary a scripting language is. Cryptography is so simple (concise?) in comparison to C.

The lack of a standard format is kind of weird so I’m not sure of what best practice is, I’ve just been reading in input via file opening rather than reading in from stdin which is what I usually do.

It took me maybe a day or two to get comfortable enough to ditch an IDE and get back to writing in a text editor.

1 Like

The critical bit of computer science for AoC 2016 was graph search. For 2015, itertools.

New one is up again. Get your code on.

1 Like

That leaderboard join code, 111686-e01a629f, is still good. I’m still recovering from PAX Unplugged, but I’ll catch up.

I will do it if I remember while I am home at the computer. Lots of other things competing for my time right now, though.

Fun fact: I was [E]nforcing at East this year and a guy with an Advent of Code shirt came to check a game out of the library. I talked to him about it, and he was the guy who made Advent of Code.

This is the first year I’ve done it because I’ve always been busy in previous years. I’m funemployed now, so plenty of time to tackle it. I’ve been keeping up with the current year and am planning to finish all the previous years as well. Over halfway through 2015 currently. Feels good to be doing real code again after a few months.

1 Like

I’m enjoying Advent 2018 so far. Nothing’s been super tricky, although I spent a day debugging my collision code for Day 13, and the wording on Day 14 was muddled.

Ooops, I forgot all about it. Maybe I’ll go back and do every advent ever at some point.

I did the first few then became unblocked on a project at work. I will
get caught up soon. The ones I did so far have been fun.

The event this year has had some really good problems so far, done up through day 12. I also finished all of 2015 in the last couple weeks, and I feel like the difficulty is higher on average this year than that one. Which is good, the problems get more complex and more interesting, which means more fun.

Man, Day 15 was a pain in the ass to get right. Seems to be the breaking point for a lot of people according to Reddit. I don’t think there was a problem with the problem itself, it was well explained and consistent, but there weren’t any good heuristics to figure out exactly where you’re going wrong.

I’ve been loathing Day 15 since I read it. It’s too much like work. I’m almost done with the basic logic, but unless it works correctly immediately it’s going to be a nightmare to debug.

Update: It worked!

https://www.michaelfogleman.com/aoc18/

I haven’t looked at these answers, but they are here if anyone needs to.

I only just started working through these, but my repo is here. Python BTW bc LIST COMPREHENSION


opera_2018-12-20_23-45-42

:laughing:

1 Like

Cool! My repo is here and I’m writing it in Rust. Don’t forget to join the leaderboard 111686-e01a629f

List comprehensions :heart:

Dictionary comprehension :revolving_hearts:

1 Like

defaultdict :brain::boom:

Ok, back to Advent after holiday break. Skipping day 21 for now because interpreting and hand-optimizing fake assembly is boring. Day 22 part 1 wasn’t a problem, but I’ve got a bug with part 2. Nine stars to go!

I got to day 20 and kind of burned out. I guess trying to do multiple events in the same month will do that to you, I ended up doing over 50 days worth of problems in 20 days. Since coming back from visiting family I have also had the upcoming move on the mind, so I will get back to finishing this at some point, just might be a few weeks/months.

1 Like