MiniScriptEval VS AdventOfCode2022

Last week, we talked about the Pratt parsing algorithm. Prior to learning about that, I had always written recursive-descent parsers, including one a couple years ago that could evaluate simple numeric expressions.

Note that dependsOn is a list of monkey names; we look up the corresponding Monkey objects in a global map called monkeys. Also, to avoid writing code to handle the four different operators, I used the eval module from this repo to evaluate an expression based on the monkey's operator.

That "Operation" line is a problem. MiniScript does not have a built-in eval function (though there is a repo for that). If I weren't under time pressure, I'd probably write a very simple expression parser and evaluator that can parse and evaluate A op B, where A and B are either "old" or a number, and op is either '+' or '*'. But this being Advent of Code, I was under time pressure. That seemed like a poor choice.

I've been trying to improve my J skills by doing the https://adventofcode.com/2022 puzzles. I got stuck on day 7 because recursion in J is possible but an advanced level incantation.

Check previous years puzzles To get complete idea of the format of Advent of Code and get started grinding you should check out old puzzles first. To checkout old problems- https://adventofcode.com/2022/

You can check out https://adventofcode.com/2022 (and not only year 2022 but also previous years). It has coding challenges in the form of Christmas stories. When it is live then new challenges open up every day like one would be opening up advent calendar. These challenges are quite interesting. Me and my colleagues at work, professional software developers, we also participate in these events. So it is not only for beginners. First days are simpler but with every added day the challenges become more complex. Still, the challenges are doable. You do not need to be on a professional software developer level. We do it just to try out different programming languages we normally do not work with.

No oitavo dia do Advent of Code de 2022 tem um problema interessante para discutir sobre o termo constante na complexidade de um algoritmo.

In the example above, the pipe operator |> takes the output of the previous function and passes it as the input for the next function. Here's a more complex example. It's my solution to Advent of Code 2022 day 1 pt.2.

In a similar exercise fashion, I would recommend Advent of Code. It's an "event" that happens in December. The idea is that every day you get two tasks, described somewhat like in a math textbook. You need to find/develop an algorithm to solve the task. First task each day is usually fairly simple, but the second task expands on the first and pushes you to optimize it. It's a seasonal thing, but all the tasks from previous years are always available, so you can just go through them whenever. This also has it's own subreddit where people post their solutions and explanations, so if you are stuck somewhere you can always check out what other people did. It's not specifically for Unity, but it's also important to understand "vanilla" C#, so I recommend just doing those as a C# application. Great way to learn different algorithms

TL;DR; Checkout Advent Of Code. Its not exactly competitive programming, but rather has an Advent Calendar for the Christmas but for Data Structure and Algorithm problems! I dislike grinding LeetCode and going through any competitive programming as such. But I really enjoyed Advent of Code.

I wrote this post a few days ago about what I learned doing Advent of Code this year. I did the puzzles in Python and, while I've been coding in Python for quite some time, still learned new things. Hope this might be helpful to others as well.