AoC-2022 VS advent-of-code-jq

The challenge did inspire some ideas for new libraries and library functions. Over the course of the month, I created an aoc module with a variety of general utility functions that may make their way into the standard Mini Micro library; as well as a search module, which will probably end up as its own repo.

I've now created such a library, and redid last night's challenge using it.

I'm using the list.combinations method (in my AoC module) to find all the different ways we can form setA (my valves) by taking n of the goodValves. Then, we find setB (the elephant's set) by simply removing each of mine from a copy of the full set.

Oh, but I promised some pretty graphics, didn't I? Since I'm doing all this in Mini Micro, those are easy to add (you can see the code here). The GIF at the top of this post shows the movement of the rope for the Part B example. And here's the start of its motion for my real input file... though the full input makes it wander much longer, and much further from the origin. Enjoy!

Once again, my starter program did me no good; nor did I need any of the stuff I've been gathering in my custom aoc module, or even the standard /sys/lib modules. The solution was plain, unadorned MiniScript. ❤️

By this point I have a starter program which reads an input file line by line, has a place to calculate a result for each line, and then does some kind of summary of the results. I didn't need all that for this program, so I cut some stuff out, and (under time pressure) ignored other bits. But with a little more cleaning up, my solution boils down to this:

Given the libraries I had, I don't see how. However, I may add some new tricks to my aoc module. Maybe I should have a "select" method that grabs a subset of a sequence (string or list) given a list of indexes. I could use this on each line to convert the raw input, like [Z] [M] [P], into just the letters, like ZMP (by doing line = line.select(range(1, line.len, 4))). Then I'd have a list of strings like:

If you want to join me, please do! I'm posting all the code on GitHub, including my little lib/aoc module. I encourage you to join us on Discord too, where we can strategize and commiserate. See you there!

Inspired (and simplified) by the Advent of Code, you get bite-sized Docker knowledge every day! From December 1st to 24th, 2024, we'll explore everything containers - from basic concepts to advanced techniques. At the end of the 4 weeks, you will certainly have learned Docker and if you're lucky, you might even win some awesome swag!

December Adventure is an Advent of Code alternative that is meant as a productive, but low key, personal programming challenge. As explained by December Adventure progenitor Eli: “Pick a project, or projects and work on them a little bit every day in December.”

My personal challenge last year was to solve everything on my mobile phone, using LLMs (mostly ChatGPT4 with code interpreter; I didn't paste in the problems, but rather described the code I wanted.)

This year I'm declaring "Advent of Claude"! Write a Claude custom style to solve Advent of Code puzzles within Claude's UI.

Score: # adventofcode.com stars earned in 2 daily conversation turns.

Fine print: web app artifacts are allowed, including paste of your custom input into the artifact UI; one click only.

Per https://adventofcode.com/2024/about, wait until the daily http://adventofcode.com leaderboard is full before submitting LLM-generated solutions!

Of course, feel free to use ChatGPT custom instructions, static prompts, etc.

adventofcode.com is a website created by Eric Wastl where, from December 1st to December 25th, a daily programming puzzle is published. These puzzles can be solved with code, and they range from simple to complex as the days progress. If you enjoy programming, it’s an incredibly fun experience!. For a sneak peak, check out puzzles from previous years here.

It's that time of the year again! Advent of Code is my favorite coding challenge, and I enjoy talking about the problems with friends and coworkers.

The most well known is the Eric Wastl's Advent of Code it will start dropping daily challenges at midnight EST (UTC-5) on December 1. The puzzles are language agnostic. You can solve them in whatever language you want.

As a self-guided alternative, you could try going through https://adventofcode.com/ problems with your language of choice.

I'm working my way through Advent of Code's back catalog. 2018 Day 24 looks fun. Well, part 1 looks fun. I'm dreading whatever search part 2 will likely require. Anyway, AoC problems tend to be written in a style that suggests a way to implement. For example:

Advent of Code taught me a lot. It is a light programming contest that takes place every December and consists of a series of small programming puzzles that can be solved in any programming language. I find it an excellent way to keep my coding skills sharp.