4 ms·

It's doable if you (a) are good at algorithmic programming challenges, (b) don't have a job, and (c) don't need to buy any christmas presents.

smrq 5y ago
You're really overselling the time commitment, in my opinion. Last year, only three days (13, 19, 20) took me more than a half hour. I suppose I probably fit criterion A, but the other two are nonsense.
- da39a3ee 5y ago
  That's really impressive, congrats! But, I'm not a bad programmer and up to around day 15 they regularly took me multiple hours. And around day 15 I started to find them hard as in couldn't do them. Do you remember what it's like to not be able to do a problem? There are lots of normal people reading HN -- surely you remember what they're like? Like, imagine someone who's learning to program, or one of those people who's really keen to do things in an obscure abstract way, but hasn't yet learned how to do things usimply. Have you met programmers from bootcamps who've only been taught a jumble of javascript, mostly framework stuff? I know there aren't many people like that where you work! But they do exist and they are here with us reading HN. It often takes me 15 or 20 minutes to read and understand the problem description. But it sounds like you frequently had solutions written within that time!
  - pantulis 5y ago
    I'm more with you, I guess. I find the increasing difficulty to push my brain more and more to its limits. So I usually just do the first few days in my language of choice for that year and there I go. No need to stress.
  - smrq 5y ago
    That was a very kind way of putting me in my place, and I sincerely appreciate it. I don't have a big competitive coding background or anything like that (AoC is really the only competition I've tried) but I suppose it's undeniable that I have a stronger background in coding in general than many, and it's totally reasonable that without that background, a larger time commitment would be necessary. Fair point!
    - da39a3ee 5y ago
      Thanks, that's a nice response to get! Do you use python for doing these sorts of things quickly?
      - smrq 5y ago
        I don't actually, although that's a good guess--I think a lot of the really fast solvers use Python. Makes sense--not a lot of typing, big stdlib to lean on. I use JS though, because it happens to be the language I'm most comfortable in. (Which is probably the most important thing if speed is a goal!)

smrq 5y ago

You're really overselling the time commitment, in my opinion. Last year, only three days (13, 19, 20) took me more than a half hour. I suppose I probably fit criterion A, but the other two are nonsense.

da39a3ee 5y ago
That's really impressive, congrats! But, I'm not a bad programmer and up to around day 15 they regularly took me multiple hours. And around day 15 I started to find them hard as in couldn't do them. Do you remember what it's like to not be able to do a problem? There are lots of normal people reading HN -- surely you remember what they're like? Like, imagine someone who's learning to program, or one of those people who's really keen to do things in an obscure abstract way, but hasn't yet learned how to do things usimply. Have you met programmers from bootcamps who've only been taught a jumble of javascript, mostly framework stuff? I know there aren't many people like that where you work! But they do exist and they are here with us reading HN. It often takes me 15 or 20 minutes to read and understand the problem description. But it sounds like you frequently had solutions written within that time!
- pantulis 5y ago
  I'm more with you, I guess. I find the increasing difficulty to push my brain more and more to its limits. So I usually just do the first few days in my language of choice for that year and there I go. No need to stress.
- smrq 5y ago
  That was a very kind way of putting me in my place, and I sincerely appreciate it. I don't have a big competitive coding background or anything like that (AoC is really the only competition I've tried) but I suppose it's undeniable that I have a stronger background in coding in general than many, and it's totally reasonable that without that background, a larger time commitment would be necessary. Fair point!
  - da39a3ee 5y ago
    Thanks, that's a nice response to get! Do you use python for doing these sorts of things quickly?
    - smrq 5y ago
      I don't actually, although that's a good guess--I think a lot of the really fast solvers use Python. Makes sense--not a lot of typing, big stdlib to lean on. I use JS though, because it happens to be the language I'm most comfortable in. (Which is probably the most important thing if speed is a goal!)