5 ms·

> Problems start very easy on day 1 (sometimes as easy as just asking for a program that sums all numbers in the input) and progress towards more difficult ones

by tromp 3y ago

> Problems start very easy on day 1 (sometimes as easy as just asking for a program that sums all numbers in the input) and progress towards more difficult ones, but they never get very hard: a CS graduate should be able to solve all problems, except maybe 1 or 2, in a couple of hours each. I think this wildly overestimates the programming skills of the average CS graduate. My estimate of the fraction of CS graduates able to do that is closer to 1%.

brightball 3y ago
I ran a private leaderboard for conference tickets this year and then surveyed participants afterwards. Earning a silver star took less than 1 hour each day for almost everybody on average. The gold star was tougher, between 2-5 on average. https://blog.carolina.codes/p/advent-of-code-ticket-winners https://blog.carolina.codes/p/advent-of-code-ticket-winners
- thethirdone 3y ago
  Based on the leaderboard screenshot, only 7 people even solved up to day 12. The later days tend to be significantly harder than the early days. Based on top 100 leaderboard times, ~2x as hard for silver star.
  - brightball 3y ago
    Yea, it gets tougher for sure. Everybody who participated seemed to enjoy solving the problems. Many of them have said they plan to solve the rest over the next couple of months, just not on the contest timeline.
  - encomiast 3y ago
    Yeah this…the conclusion I would have drawn is not that the gold star took between 2-5 on average, but rather, 85% of people who self-select as enjoying a programming challenge where not able to finish more than half the tasks. Not that that's bad — seems slightly above par for the leaderboards I was involved in — just that the conclusion is really misleading.
    - brightball 3y ago
      You’re free to draw your own conclusions of course. I can only tell you about the feedback I’ve gotten directly. Even people who didn’t complete any of the challenges have told me they plan to work them over the course of the year. We’re going to make this an annual thing and announce it at the next conference in August, so hopefully we will have more participants next year.
      - danbruc 3y ago
        Nothing will change the fact that the people participating in this challenge are not a representative sample of computer science graduates, hence an evaluation of their performance will not really tell much about what kind of performance one should expect from the average computer science graduate.
        brightball 3y ago
        I will say that one of the guys who tied to win the competition is a 2021 Computer Science grad from Clemson. He's not a brand new grad, but that's the closest sample that I have.
        Sharlin 3y ago
        There's still a huge selection effect. He could have been solving programming puzzles as a hobby for the past fifteen years for all we know, and his degree might have little to do with his AoC skills.
        danbruc 3y ago
        The claim was that all computer science graduates should be able to solve those problems in a few hours each, the counter claim was that only one percent of them is capable to do so. The existence of one computer science graduates capable of winning the contest does not really tell us anything and I think nobody doubted that there are computer science graduates that are easily capable of solving such problems. But the question was or is, are they the exception or the norm?
- Levitz 3y ago
  The average CS graduate doesn't attend conferences though. Enthusiasts do. And even bigger enthusiasts decide to compete for tickets.
boxed 3y ago
That's because most CS graduates can't code. At all. So yea...
sagaro 3y ago
Unlike Project Euler etc. where one really needs to be good at algorithms/math etc to make the most efficient code, else it will just run for days to brute force, most of advent of code can be solved with terrible algo as the input data is very small. I think most CS grad students can solve Advent of Code. Some people, probably don't finish it not because it is hard, but probably because they lose interest.
- plandis 3y ago
  In my experience solving several years of Advent of Code, this is only true for part 1 of most days. A lot of part 2 solutions rely on heuristics to be solved in reasonable amounts of time.
- Sateeshm 3y ago
  I failed to brute force day 4 part 2
- robryan 3y ago
  There are some from 2023 that aren't. Day 12 part 2 at least for me had one input that ended up being 95% or more of all permutations and would have taken at least weeks.
qingcharles 3y ago
When I started my CS degree and one of the first classes was how to use Microsoft Word I lost my shit.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  No idea what school you went to but the first class is usually intro to programming, nothing to do with ms word
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    This was University of West of England.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by tromp 3y ago

brightball 3y ago

I ran a private leaderboard for conference tickets this year and then surveyed participants afterwards. Earning a silver star took less than 1 hour each day for almost everybody on average. The gold star was tougher, between 2-5 on average. https://blog.carolina.codes/p/advent-of-code-ticket-winners https://blog.carolina.codes/p/advent-of-code-ticket-winners

thethirdone 3y ago
Based on the leaderboard screenshot, only 7 people even solved up to day 12. The later days tend to be significantly harder than the early days. Based on top 100 leaderboard times, ~2x as hard for silver star.
- brightball 3y ago
  Yea, it gets tougher for sure. Everybody who participated seemed to enjoy solving the problems. Many of them have said they plan to solve the rest over the next couple of months, just not on the contest timeline.
- encomiast 3y ago
  Yeah this…the conclusion I would have drawn is not that the gold star took between 2-5 on average, but rather, 85% of people who self-select as enjoying a programming challenge where not able to finish more than half the tasks. Not that that's bad — seems slightly above par for the leaderboards I was involved in — just that the conclusion is really misleading.
  - brightball 3y ago
    You’re free to draw your own conclusions of course. I can only tell you about the feedback I’ve gotten directly. Even people who didn’t complete any of the challenges have told me they plan to work them over the course of the year. We’re going to make this an annual thing and announce it at the next conference in August, so hopefully we will have more participants next year.
    - danbruc 3y ago
      Nothing will change the fact that the people participating in this challenge are not a representative sample of computer science graduates, hence an evaluation of their performance will not really tell much about what kind of performance one should expect from the average computer science graduate.
      - brightball 3y ago
        I will say that one of the guys who tied to win the competition is a 2021 Computer Science grad from Clemson. He's not a brand new grad, but that's the closest sample that I have.
        Sharlin 3y ago
        There's still a huge selection effect. He could have been solving programming puzzles as a hobby for the past fifteen years for all we know, and his degree might have little to do with his AoC skills.
        danbruc 3y ago
        The claim was that all computer science graduates should be able to solve those problems in a few hours each, the counter claim was that only one percent of them is capable to do so. The existence of one computer science graduates capable of winning the contest does not really tell us anything and I think nobody doubted that there are computer science graduates that are easily capable of solving such problems. But the question was or is, are they the exception or the norm?
Levitz 3y ago
The average CS graduate doesn't attend conferences though. Enthusiasts do. And even bigger enthusiasts decide to compete for tickets.

boxed 3y ago

That's because most CS graduates can't code. At all. So yea...

sagaro 3y ago

Unlike Project Euler etc. where one really needs to be good at algorithms/math etc to make the most efficient code, else it will just run for days to brute force, most of advent of code can be solved with terrible algo as the input data is very small. I think most CS grad students can solve Advent of Code. Some people, probably don't finish it not because it is hard, but probably because they lose interest.

plandis 3y ago
In my experience solving several years of Advent of Code, this is only true for part 1 of most days. A lot of part 2 solutions rely on heuristics to be solved in reasonable amounts of time.
Sateeshm 3y ago
I failed to brute force day 4 part 2
robryan 3y ago
There are some from 2023 that aren't. Day 12 part 2 at least for me had one input that ended up being 95% or more of all permutations and would have taken at least weeks.

qingcharles 3y ago

When I started my CS degree and one of the first classes was how to use Microsoft Word I lost my shit.

edgyquant 3y ago
No idea what school you went to but the first class is usually intro to programming, nothing to do with ms word
- qingcharles 3y ago
  This was University of West of England.

deleted 3y ago

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