advent-of-code.md (3415B)
1 # Advent of Code 2 3 The [Advent of Code](https://adventofcode.com) is an online programming 4 contest that takes place every year in December. It works like an 5 [advent calendar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_calendar), except 6 each day instead of a piece of chocolate or a sweet you get a new problem 7 to solve. 8 9 I have taken part in this contest for the first time this year, after 10 an email from a colleague that mentioned prizes for the winner of our 11 private leaderboard. Even without any prize, if it is a challenge 12 then I must accept it! 13 14 *Warning: if you are still trying to complete the problems, you may find 15 minor spoilers ahead, but nothing game-breaking.* 16 17 ## Choosing my weapons 18 19 As I was initially not planning on taking part in the challenge, I did 20 not have much time to decide which language or tools to use. I opted for 21 solving the problems in C, because it is the language I worked with the 22 most recently, but in hindsight it would have been more convenient to 23 refresh my Python or C++ skills. 24 25 In the end using a more limited language did not make a big difference: the 26 easy problems were still easy, some of the hard ones became a bit slower 27 to type out. I also had some fun implementing some basic data structures, 28 for example [heaps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_(data_structure)) 29 for [day 17](https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/17). 30 31 ## The fun 32 33 Overall, I really enjoyed solving these problems! I liked the diverse 34 set of techniques that were needed: graph algorithms, dynamic programming, 35 computational geometry... a very nice selection of brain teasers! 36 37 I also liked the fact that the difficulty increased *on average*, but 38 sometimes a hard problem was be followed by an easier one. This way, 39 even if I found a problem particularly hard, I could still hope that 40 the next one would be quicker to solve. 41 42 I also liked that other people, including friends, colleagues and my 43 girlfriend, were taking on the challenge at the same time. I enjoyed 44 explaining my solution or asking my friends to explain theirs. By the 45 way, my friend Jared has some in-depth explanation of his solutions 46 in his [blog](https://guissmo.com/blog/) - check it out! 47 48 ## The ugly 49 50 There were a couple of problems that I disliked, and all of them for 51 the same reason: the problem was not solvable without taking advantage 52 of specific properties of the input data that were not made explicit in 53 the problem's statement. 54 55 As a Mathematician, I am never going to randomly assume that a generic 56 graph has a specific structure, or that just throwing the 57 [lcm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_common_multiple) into my 58 algorithm would make it work. So I was scratching my head for hours trying 59 to solve a general problem that was very likely unsolvable, when I only 60 had to solve a special case. 61 62 However, as a Reddit user pointed out, the input data *is* part of the 63 problem statement. Analyzing it to figure out what algorithm may work 64 is a skill. I guess I learnt something from this. 65 66 ## Solutions 67 68 If you are interested, you can find all my solutions on 69 [my git page](https://git.tronto.net/aoc/) and on 70 [Github](https://github.com/sebastianotronto/aoc). They are written in 71 [C99](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C99) without any external dependency 72 other than the C standard library. 73 74 Apart from the harder problems, I have not commented my solutions much, 75 but you can send me an email if you want some explanation!