Kotest VS advent-of-code-jq

As you might know, Advent of Code will begin this Friday! If, like me, you want to have a go at solving the puzzles in Kotlin, I would like to share with you a little library I've developed to reduce boilerplate and solve the puzzles in a test-driven approach. It is based on Kotest, a modern and Kotlin-first test framework.

Kotlin testing with Kotest and MockK

As a matter of fact, in the previous examples, we have shifted a bit away from the TDD standards in the meaning that we test not only the operability of our code, but rather check if the code runs according to certain specifications (Given/When/Then). These specifications are our tests, and the syntactic sugar in the form of the possibility to give clear names to the tests using DisplayName and the grouping of the tests by a set of similar attributes helps us clearly formulate these specifications. There is an entire family of frameworks in different languages that allow us to create such specifications: for Java it is Spock, for Ruby—RSpec, and for Kotlin—Spek and Kotest frameworks. Below, I will go into more detail about them.

I've tried so many times. SO MANY. I love the idea of mutation testing. Even chatGPT couldn't help me. It just made up fake mutation testing frameworks to try. To me, pitest is dead. kotest is not mutation testing, but it's property testing is the next best thing I have found to revolutionize your unit tests.

The extensions are not particularly useful in this scenario because the described functionality can be incorporated into the Host class. On the other hand, they flourish in test frameworks like Kotest and enable the rapid development of useful add-ons like custom matchers. Extending third-party libraries with utility functions is another prevalent use case. In the next sections, we'll zero in on this specific aspect.

We're using Kotest for our unit tests and are quite happy with it.

Basic testing in Kotlin with Kotest built for kotlin specificatlly (upcoming)

Here you are: https://github.com/kotest/kotest/issues/189

If you just want a series of programming puzzles, check out the Advent of Code[1]

[1] https://adventofcode.com/

This goes against Agile, against what many have only known. You can try it, and see what happens. Try a challenge from AdventOfCode, spend a couple of days working up a plan first. Did you write a cleaner solution? Now extrapolate.

I have used BFS only sporadically to solve problems at work. DFS was usually a simpler or better choice. BFS is, however, an essential tool for Advent of Code puzzles - each year, BFS is sufficient to solve at least a few puzzles. BFS is also a very common algorithm for coding interviews.

I'm staring to be a huge fan of the Advent of Code challenge every beginning of December. Everyday puzzle is a great excuse to talk to people of your company that probably you don't interact much otherwise. And /r/adventofcode subreddit fan-arts and community is fun to follow. I always entered after completing the daily challenge, otherwise it may be a huge spoil :D

Advent of Code (https://adventofcode.com/)

It's not a programming course per-se, but it's a great resource to master the skill of coding and problem solving.

It's just one part though, it won't teach you anything about architecturing a bigger system.

For anyone currently looking for something that does this for you, may I suggest Advent of Code: https://adventofcode.com/ This is the first year I've really had time and space to enjoy it, and enjoy it I have.

Also - this article ends on such a weird note given the message that the rest of it delivers. The author has finally realized how valuable it is to have something that gets them going, regardless of whether or not it ends up being "useful", but then immediately stumbles over the fear of it not lasting and failing to achieve greatness in it and sharply concludes with that sentiment.

Perseverance through intermediate-ness into greatness is irrelevant to enjoyment.

Hanukkah of Data is a series of data-themed puzzles, where you solve puzzles to move your way through a holiday-themed story using a fictional dataset. I think of it as "Advent of Code meets SQL Murder Mystery".

This journey will transform you and challenge your creative and resourceful thinking. You will explore new possibilities with VIM, going beyond what you thought it could do. And as you advance through the Advent Of Code puzzles, you will truly transform yourself if you follow the two scenarios listed below.

I've been making a CLI for advent of code ( https://adventofcode.com/ ) this week: https://github.com/VitamintK/wang-aoc-cli

It's been satisfying!

December started 12 days ago, and for my first year I decided to try the Advent of Code 2023, which is basically 1 programming problem everyday and they get harder and harder each day. I started HARD, I ate problems, day by day, until... day 10; things started getting pretty hard and couldn't do - I think - pretty average difficulty problems.