Advent of Code - 2024

The event is over, but the work toward finishing has just begun for me. Some observations from this year's puzzles:

• A lot of 2d grids and a few Dijkstra's algorithm puzzles! (OSPF nerds unite!)
• Parsing the data seemed easier this year
• My algorithm detection skills still need work
• Improving my regex quick hacks will be very helpful. I tend to super overcomplicate them
• I struggle on problems that can’t be solved (with my available compute) by brute force, so I need to work through some performance optimization studies

What did you learn, and how did you feel about this year?

I'm still reading the daily challenges, though the misses and I decided to buy a homestead a little south of us so a lot of my "free" time is consumed now with boxing up my current house and filling out paperwork for the buy/sell process. That said...I got a solve for part 1 today! WOO HOO! Will have to crack my algebra book open for part 2, so January on that. I also finally fixed a bug in my day 10 part 1 that got me a solve, so two new stars!

Day 7-9...

Day 7 part 1 no biggie.
Day 8 and 9? Uh...I don't even know how to read the instructions, let alone actually solve the challenge. These will be January challenges for Jason.

Day 6...

A LOT of paper processing on this one. Didn't have time for part 2, that'll be a post-Dec exercise. I started down the path of only storing the obstacles but the test data and the real data are not the same thing and I didn't account for more than one # in a row/col during test. So the big learning today for me is look at the real data before formulating a plan. I had to rework my parsing and strategy.

Day 5...part 1 wasn't so bad, but I ended up with a lot more code than I hoped for. I threw in the towel on part 2 and watched a video solution. Ugh...first fail this year. I noticed a couple on the leaderboard are still perfect!

Day 4!

Rare puzzle where part 2 is easier than part 1. Grid searches...a lot of pencil and paper mapping for me on these. Easier when you aren't wrapping a row or column outside the grid boundary.

Probably the first proper Go program I've ever written. Probably doing a lot wrong.  https://github.com/4141done/advent_of_code_solutions/blob/main/2024/go/main/day1/day1.go

Solutions in Elixir for a more fun exercise. I always love it when I get to pattern match on strings like this https://github.com/4141done/advent_of_code_solutions/blob/main/2024/elixir/day1/lib/day1.ex

We'll see how many more days I hang in. Like others I usually stop once it starts taking too much of my time

Turned out I had day 1 part 2 correct (albeit using 10x the amount of code everyone else used...)

I interpreted the instructions wrong and had run my algorithm twice, once for each column. Then added the 2 answers together and kept submitting various iterations of that.

Anyways, this small step is a leap forward for me with python or any coding for that matter. I'll take the little victory 😊

Edit: In all it's glory... https://github.com/buulam/aoc2024/blob/main/dec1/main.py

I haven't actually pushed the first two days yet, but I always participate at least until the problems get so hard that I can't finish them in a couple hours (usually make it to day 8-9...

https://github.com/xb4r7x/adventOfCode

Day 2 learnings...

• python sorted function doesn't behave the same on integers as strings as it does as pure integers.
• sometimes the explanation itself is hard to understand...looking at you part 2!