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#adventofcode2023

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A few weeks ago I decided to start doing the #AdventOfCode2023 exercises in #CommonLisp. Despite barely knowing anything about Lisp I managed the first star without too much trouble beyond having to look a lot of things up. Then for the second star I almost immediately figured out how to do it but spent several days finding out how to express that solution in Lisp without making it too confusing.

Crazy how much difference the right data structure / #algorithm for a task makes.

This week I learned about #Deterministic #Finite #Automata and #Nondeterministic Finite Automata just to redo my clunky #AdventOfCode2023 day 12 challenge, written in #Rust #RustLang

Runtime for part 1 dropped from 1-2secs to milliseconds. Part 2 also milliseconds 😮

Are there any good Rust crates for DFAs/NFAs?

Many people solved that problem with #Dynamic #Programming - something else for the learn list 😉

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Trying to do #AdventOfCode2023 Day 25 to be close to wrapping it up.

Apparently the "Stoer–Wagner algorithm" finds the minimum cut to split a graph.

Except the Wikipedia example code is apparently broken, and all of the other examples I've found are REALLY shit with their naming.

It's easier to teach a mathematician to code than it is to teach a programmer maths. But that doesn't mean the mathematician can be trusted to write readable code with sensible variables 😐

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On to Day 24 of #AdventOfCode2023 and… UGH! Is there any way to make this not horribly maths-y? I've yet to find anyone online giving a clear approach (and I took maths through to A Level… 20 years ago!)

None of this is made easier by Google being "helpful" and putting lots of "intersection of sets/arrays" content at the top when searching for intersection of vectors in a given programming language 🧐

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Hey, look! It's another #AdventOfCode2023 where the sample is correct, everything seems to make sense, and yet my answer is too high. But the full input is so complex and there's no ground truth and so I have no way of finding out which corner case I'm apparently not handling 😐

I think I've worked out where my limit is with #AdventOfCode2023.

Got to optimise an implementation and use the right data structures? Fine.

Got to plot things out to find patterns and mathematical shortcuts (especially if it's a shortcut that you've got to know rather than find)? Screw that and leave the boredom for the mathematicians!

Time to wrap up last year's #AdventOfCode. It was a lot of fun, I learned a lot of new thing and finished with 36/50 stars.

I solved puzzles with #Python, writing explanations and educational tidbits along the way while discussing them and reading solutions from a wide variety of people using different programming languages.

This retrospective includes a couple of spoilers but is mostly conversational and not about the solutions directly.

hamatti.org/posts/advent-of-co

Juha-Matti Santala - Community Builder. Dreamer. Adventurer. · Advent of Code 2023 retrospectiveLast month I participated in Advent of Code again, helping the elves to save Christmas. By 25th, I reached 36 stars and learned a bunch of new things.
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Day 19 of #AdventOfCode2023 wasn't too bad. I even found a generalised way to turn "<" and ">" into operations and call them in Ruby!

But I'm just glazing over on Day 20. As much as I hate being defeated by coding challenges, and as much as I enjoyed doing Seven Languages in Seven Weeks, I think I need to call it quits with this.

It has gone from "interesting distraction and challenge" to "you're being so obscure that I just can't bring myself to care".

Trying to catch up on #AdventOfCode2023. Working on Day 18. Almost had it, but the inside count was missing some conditions. Restructured it so it worked with Day 10s "inside the loop" area finding algorithm. Success!

Then got to part 2. Parsing is trivial. The sample took impossibly long, so the full input is right out.

Read up online. Shoelaces and Pick's theorem? WTF? I'm a programmer, not a bloody mathematician 😐

There's "interesting challenge" and there's "teaches you nothing useful".