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Advent of Code 2025: Number of puzzles reduce from 25 to 12 for the first time

480 points by vismit2000 1y ago

testdelacc1 1y ago
Last year was the first time I completed all 25 and I was looking forward to reprising that. It’s alright. I guess I could always try older problems.
- radiator 1y ago
  That is a healthy attitude. I wonder if everyone "missing" AoC has already solved all the past problems.
vismit2000 1y ago
From FAQ: "Why did the number of days per event change? It takes a ton of my free time every year to run Advent of Code, and building the puzzles accounts for the majority of that time. After keeping a consistent schedule for ten years(!), I needed a change. The puzzles still start on December 1st so that the day numbers make sense (Day 1 = Dec 1), and puzzles come out every day (ending mid-December)."
shrx 1y ago
One of the reasons I stopped participating was that as the second half of december was approaching I had less and less free time for solving the puzzles. So to me it is also a welcome change, I will try to finish it again this year.
- jojobas 1y ago
  Doesn't help that the puzzles become increasingly tricky and you can't just solve them as you sip your coffee anymore (although some apparently can).
- seabombs 1y ago
  Agree. It was getting in the way of me spending time with the family because I was distracted mulling over the puzzles. I had thought last year that they could peak the difficulty around the middle of the month and bring it down a bit leading up to the 25th. But just finishing it earlier is probably better IMO.
- NoboruWataya 1y ago
  Same, I love AoC but I just never have time for them (December is always the busiest time of year in my job). I would have liked if a puzzle was released every 2 days though so it still spanned the whole month. Would be more aligned with the advent calendar concept. In fact in previous years the puzzles have always had two parts so if that format is still being retained there will still effectively be 24 puzzles.
  - emerongi 1y ago
    Spreading the two parts across separate days would be interesting. There would be an extra element of trying to predict what part 2 will be like.
  - KeplerBoy 1y ago
    Then again who has the time in the latter half of December? I completed AoC on time every day once and let's just say it wasn't a very pleasant experience. Very similar to sticking to a too ambitious, too rigid gym schedule. Still time well spent, but it sucks out all the joy.
    - qwertfisch 1y ago
      I participated in the very first AoC and solved all problems, but the last 6 or 7 only way after Christmas, when I had more time, holidays, and I just wanted to complete the contest. Then there was another AoC … and no, I didn’t solve all the problems, not even close. In most years I got 24 to 36 stars, 2018 and 2020 I did not participate. Last year I was in a good place, wanted to practice a new programming language (Crystal). And I was determined to get every puzzle solved in 24 hours. And I did it, but for two or three puzzles it was oh so frustrating. With angry screams, searching help in the IRC, for two puzzles even not understanding for many hours how it works. And then at 1:52 AM (puzzles start at 6AM for me) I found the solution. It was liberating and gratifying, but at the same time so tiring and frustrating. The only reason I went along with was the overall goal, getting a permanent record of having solved every puzzle on the first day. And I am happy about it (in hindsight, it was the last opportunity for doing so with 25*2 puzzles), and now I never need or want to do it again. Or do I? Only 12 days of trying to get solutions are much more possible.
- rich_sasha 1y ago
  I once has this half serious idea to do "Advent of Parenting", with one problem per month, and you start after Christmas. As in, youre so delayed you start in the New Year, and have time for one problem per month. But hey I didn't have the time to do it. Kids...
  - Scarblac 1y ago
    When my kids move out, one of my plans is to finally start the first Advent of Code.
    - skeeter2020 1y ago
      you'll have a new set of excuses then, too.
      - zelphirkalt 1y ago
        Question is, when you write down the numbers of excuses and the number of things you could so each month, as in your input .... How many months do you have less excuses available than problems you could solve? Part 2: The kids want to check whether your algorithm works correctly. For that they have devised a formula: Position of the month in the input, multiplied with the number of problems not excusable to not solve, summed up for all months of the year. What is the checksum of your excuses - problems - report?
  - nekusar 1y ago
    > But hey I didn't have the time to do it. Kids... Yep, dont have the kids. And no plan to.
    - croon 1y ago
      I'm firmly of the belief that no one should have kids unless they really really want them and are content with the sacrifice it entails, but also: My kids have been the absolute best source of grey hairs in my life.
- mid-kid 1y ago
  This. The best I've ever achieved is maybe 15 puzzles on one year, with gaps for the days I missed. And this was when the puzzles were incrementally building upon implementing a bytecode interpreter, which was relatively little work per day. Once I miss my first day, playing catch up is an effort in vain, as the puzzles start taking 4+ hours to solve each, solving multiple in one day is a full-time commitment. Most advents of code I've fallen off sharply after day 7-10, if not sooner, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this. I think this is a welcome change.
  - runekaagaard 1y ago
    Yeah, totally this. I've had so much fun with AoC, learning nim, elixir at the same time. I would normally tap out around the same place on the first dynamic programming puzzle which just takes me so long to wrap my head around each time (tips anyone? :)). I welcome these new changes, and what ever the format are very greatful for all his hard work!
    - kadoban 1y ago
      > tips anyone? :) They're not as magical as they seem, you just need some practice. Read over the dynamic programming section in https://cses.fi/book/index.php https://cses.fi/book/index.php (pdf link near the top is the free English version), then do a few on https://cses.fi/problemset/ https://cses.fi/problemset/ . You'll be able to handle the AoC dynamic programming ones with _no_ problem at all.
  - zrobotics 1y ago
    Most years, I end up finishing the puzzles in January. Same reason- I end up missing a day due to schedule issues. Since it's just a 'for fun' challenge, it isn't the end of the world if you fall behind a bit. That said, this doesn't work if you are doing this as part of a group.
- confidantlake 1y ago
  For me I always had the time I just didn't have the ability. I solved all of them in 2017 but never really got close any other year.
- ihuman 1y ago
  I wouldn’t be surprised if the creator has metrics that show that most people drop off around the halfway mark, for the exact same reason
  - boccaff 1y ago
    You can see aggregated results on `stats` [1] for every year. In general, half the people drop in the first 3-4 days. For last year, by day 12 there is less than 1/5 of day 01. While the stats do count people that completed later, the shape appears to track well with what I saw during the events since 2021. [1] https://adventofcode.com/2024/stats https://adventofcode.com/2024/stats
- philipwhiuk 1y ago
  I have the opposite problem - I never get started until work wraps up.
- bmitc 1y ago
  I stopped doing it because it felt like I was restarting every puzzle rather than building on top of something, and that's not all that interesting to me. I'm not judging the process, as that's just my personal perspective about what's interesting to me.
  - narimiran 1y ago
    > building on top of something If you want that, try AoC 2019. Day 2, day 5, and then every odd day till the end: day 7, 9, 11, ... 23.
thomascountz 1y ago
Whenever there's a change like this, my gut reaction is to grieve and try to imagine ways that things could be kept the same. After thinking, "maybe puzzles could be designed by a group instead of an individual and they could share the work," I then thought, "and couldn't an LLM help?" And with that, I had to remind myself: Advent of Code isn't about there being 25 puzzles, and so maintaining volume at all costs has nothing to do with it. And aren't we so lucky that it isn't! Aren't we lucky to have had the prior 500+ challenges given as gifts over the years! Aren't we lucky to have a great demonstration of humility and care! Aren't we lucky to have 12 new gifts to look forward to this year! Thank you!
- petesergeant 1y ago
  I’ve been trying to design a puzzle for a game this year that humans can solve but LLMs can’t. I’ve come up with one, but it was hard work! It’s based around message cracking.
  - ekimekim 1y ago
    There was one in a previous AoC that I think stumped a lot of AI at the time because it involved something that was similar to poker with the same terminology but different rules. The AI couldn't help but fall into a "this is poker" trap and make a solution that follows the standard rules.
    - petesergeant 1y ago
      Interesting! Maybe that’s the general way to approach these things
    - sunrunner 1y ago
      Was that 2023's Day 7 'Camel Cards' [1]? [1] https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/7 https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/7
    - gf000 1y ago
      I mean, wasn't pretty much the second half of all AoC exercises beyond LLM capabilities? I remember there being multiple accounts trying to one-shot AoC and all ended on day 10 or so.
nikanj 1y ago
Tryhards ruin everything, part n Make a fun little christmas calendar to bring joy to the people, get turned into a gamified warzone where people use AI and bots to try to get onto the global leaderboards - possibly because getting on them might net you a job at FAANG
- ozim 1y ago
  Fun part is that world mostly doesn’t really work like that and they don’t really get the job.
- ifh-hn 1y ago
  [dead]
- iamflimflam1 1y ago
  People - the reason why we can’t have good things.
- fjfaase 1y ago
  The temptation to start a competative private leader board will be great, just for the mentioned reason. I have a reference my scores in my CV. The competative part of AoC is one of the things that I find attractive and also has taught me some valuable lessons about coding, like taking some time to review the code the first time before submitting. I experienced several times that I spend of time to debug a small bug due to a minor error, that I could have caught had I spend some time reviewing. Especially with the first puzzles, I try to get it right the fitst time with respect to compiling and execution. I will search for a pure C private group to join that only allows a small library for things like reading the input as an array of strings.
  - 0x264 1y ago
    On your CV ? Has any recruiter or hiring manager ever commented on it, or said the mention gave you an advantage ?
    - fjfaase 1y ago
lexicality 1y ago
I see the leaderboard is gone too. Unfortunate but entirely predictable given how the last 2 years went. That being said, I was worried he'd cancel the entire thing, so this is still good news!
- mid-kid 1y ago
  >predictable given how the last 2 years went QRD? Was it AI?
  - lexicality 1y ago
    Yeah, a bunch of people started going on witch hunts against the people where were obviously using AI (eg ~30 second solve times) and also anyone who had "AI" anywhere in their bio. IMO the levels it got to was wildly out of proportion, even if these people were cheating (say what you will about AI, but if the rules say not to use it and you do: you're a cheater) but maybe I would have felt differently if the timezones meant I could take part, rather than waking up to drama.
    - 10hr 1y ago
      sounds like the competition had challenges even before AI or any rules about AI or not. I never followed this challenge aside from doing a few 10 years ago in college. If speed to problem completion matters though, then question release time will be brutal for some.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - fuglede_ 1y ago
      Just to not feed the witch hunt further, note that human 30 second solve times can be entirely possible for the easiest puzzles, with enough experience, practice, and a bit of risk-taking; see e.g. https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/1 https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/1 part 1. But the 4 second solution times we saw last year are not, no matter how you look at it.
  - 1y ago
aronhegedus 1y ago
I've participated in the past, and felt like I always drop off around day 18+ because of holidays etc. I personally also didn't like when part II of a question felt like a completely new question, instead of a neat extension of the previous one. I am very happy that this is something that's available to do, for free though. I see advent of code as a good excuse to dabble with a new language, usually with a few people from work.
defanor 1y ago
On the bright side, this will lead to a more relaxed December schedule. I do not compete for the leaderboard, but trying to solve the puzzles on the days they are released (to keep it in the spirit of an advent calendar), and the puzzles towards the end sometimes take me a considerable chunk of the day to solve, which is tricky to combine with the regular schedule, and may be rather stressful (though still a nicer kind of "stressful", as you get on celebrated holidays).
- sunrunner 1y ago
  This matches my experience, and I've been 'nervously' anticipating this year's Advent of Code. I managed to keep to the spirit last year and get everything done by Christmas day (though admittedly with some days bleeding over into other days due to pesky family/other commitments), but even this relied on having the last week or so of the month be relatively free for me. While I've usually been able to do the first half of the month's puzzles in the day before breakfast, over lunch and in the evening, the increasing difficulty does mean that later puzzles can really eat into a day, particularly if you happen to go down a bad path for your solution.
sunrunner 1y ago
I genuinely look forward to Advent of Code every year (whatever that says about me) and next year's one is always on my mind, so naturally I'm somewhat sad about this as the one-puzzle-a-day up to Christmas day just felt very neat, and I liked the mostly gentle initial difficulty curve up to the more 'spiky' questions later. Having said that, having done a few years now I think the following things end up feeling consistent across years: The first 10-ish (give or take) days were always simple enough that experienced programmers can likely spit them out during their daily standup. This isn't bad, as I think they're great for newer programmers to get a bit of algorithmic and data structure thinking practice, but they can definitely feel a bit same-y once you've done a few years. This isn't a critique of how AoC was structured, just an observation of how it can feel after you've seen a few years. Having said this, I'm sure I'll miss the gentle warm-up this year. I wonder what this means for the difficulty curve i.e. the almost-inevitable path-finding question will appear on Day 5 and not Day 15? I'm sure Eric has thought this through but I wonder if an every-other-day approach (perhaps with a 'softer' puzzle for Christmas day itself) would be popular, as I imagine people balancing a job and/or family while wanting to do this might appreciate having two days for the more challenging later puzzles. On the other hand, free time for this generally does get more tight as you get closer to the end of the month and the puzzles get more challenging, so this approach does just make a chunk of space for people later in the month, and individuals can choose to keep up with the puzzles on release day if they can or just not worry about it and let things roll over. Unfortunately, I guess I'll have to actually go and see my family this Christmas instead of ignoring the mandatory visits, which seemed like a fair sacrifice to keep up with calendar ;) > It takes a ton of my free time every year to run Advent of Code, and building the puzzles accounts for the majority of that time. After keeping a consistent schedule for ten years(!), I needed a change. Completely fair. As Eric says in some of his presentations on this it takes him about three or four months of his spare time, so this is more than understandable. Props to him for keeping this up consistently with his day job for the last ten years. > The global leaderboard was one of the largest sources of stress for me, for the infrastructure, and for many users. I don't mind this so much personally (outside of a morbid curiosity in the really fast participants) although I know people that were really invested in it, but there were some genuine points of contention for people that were interested in the leaderboard: - The global puzzle unlock time, while explained by Eric himself in his presentations, does make being on the leaderboard impractical for people outside of time zones where the actual release time is friendly for that. For me it's 5am, and the only time I ever came even close (while also being nowhere near...) was when I happened to be up at that time due to insomnia (not caused by AoC). - It sounded like an infrastructural point of pain as the single global release time coupled with submissions-by-country-size and how keen some of the puzzle solvers are makes for a great initial traffic burst with a long tail (also mentioned on the behind-the-scenes videos). - It naturally favoured people with an interest in these kinds of puzzles, so the selection bias in the leaderboard is inherently skewed towards a) the subset of people that are choosing to do this out of genuine personal interest and then b) the subset of those that are likely to also be interested in competitive programming-type challenges. This is natural, but I think it does make the leaderboard less relevant for the majority of participants. - The inevitable contention of the use of 'AI' just to be on the leaderboard Anyway, I'll just end this with a thank-you to Eric himself for designing and running this consistently for the last ten years as it's something I've come to really enjoy, the community is very lucky to have this, and I hope these changes make it possible for him to continue doing this with lower physical costs to him personally and perhaps lower stress for the participants that just enjoy the puzzles for learning and the rare opportunity to write simple programs to solve problems. For interested watchers: - 'Eric Wastl – Advent of Code: Behind the Scenes' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oNOTknRTSU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oNOTknRTSU - 'Keynote: Advent of Code, Behind the Scenes - Eric Wastl' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ8DcbhojOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ8DcbhojOw Edit: Typos
cod1r 1y ago
This is sort of a bummer but as long as Eric feels less stressed and more happy, I'm all for it.
kykat 1y ago
why not a puzzle every two days instead of ending it mid-december?
- exegete 1y ago
  You will have that option
- 0x264 1y ago
  You can definitively play like that if you want to. At day 2n (n > 0) you do the puzzle of day n.
HiPhish 1y ago
If he has cut the number of puzzles in half, why not then release a new puzzle every other day? That would make more sense because AoC would still run until Christmas, and it would give people more time per puzzle. Maybe unlock part 2 of each puzzle the day after the puzzle has been posted, so there still something new every day. I once tried participating, but gave up halfway through because one puzzle per day was just too much time. If it was one puzzle every two days it would be more manageable.
- akerl_ 1y ago
  If they’re released every day for 12 days, you can do a puzzle every other day. If the were released every other day, people who wanted to do them for 12 straight days could not.
  - rootlocus 1y ago
    > If the were released every other day, people who wanted to do them for 12 straight days could not. If they instead waited 12 days, they could start with the 6 puzzles already released, and then have enough puzzles to solve once a day for the next 12 days.
- rbits 1y ago
  One puzzle per day was too much for me as well, but I just spent more than one day per puzzle. And now that the leaderboards are gone, there's no reason to you have to do them the same day.
rawling 1y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45665217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45665217
gooodvibes 1y ago
No more leaderboard too! These look like positive changes, a 2x longer event isn't 2x more fun or 2x more satisfying to participate in. After skipping the past couple of years, I feel like I'm more likely to give it a go again this year.
klustregrif 1y ago
Really appreciate thise changes! Both the reduction in puzzles which means less work, but overall I don’t think it’s going to make the event less fun. And removing the global leaderboard is good, rather than trying to police how people solve the puzzles just let people have fun on their own boards with people they know.
sandruso 1y ago
Big AoC fan these are welcomed changes. I've always started strong but fell off as it was increasingly more difficult to solve puzzles during nighttime. And after you miss one you kinda loose the streak. This year I'm going to combine it also with mine noaidecember challenge to get a little more dopamine from problem solving.
bilsbie 1y ago
Last year a lot of the problems were multi steps. Why not just break up the steps and get to 25? Also after day three I fell hopelessly behind. 12 might be fine.
mkovach 1y ago
Awesome! Yy usual 5-to-7-day output scramble will now look vastly more competent, ah, well, complete. Not actually be smarter, mind you, but radiate the comforting glow of effort by someone who has their temporal ducks in a suspiciously photogenic row. Improvement? No. But the illusion of improvement? Practically Nobel-worthy. I'm already enjoying this change.
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  I'm not sure how to parse all this, but I really appreciate the mental image of temporal ducks in a photogenic row. Sounds great for my Star Trek themed, very slow Sunday morning.
  - mkovach 1y ago
    Been toiling with a new client, ingesting their documentation, and improving it with a Hitchhiker's Guide twist, so the next person needs less caffeine and weeps less. It is bleeding into other aspects, but it's my pleasure to help with your Sunday morning imagery!
few 1y ago
This is completely tangential but as someone who used to be a competitive programmer in the 2010s, I feel like this year marked the end of an era for me. I don't have time to do regular codeforces/atcoder/leetcode rounds (and the rampant AI cheating is pretty demotivating). So the big annual rituals for me to keep my "competitive programmer" label were: fb hacker cup, google code jam, topcoder TCO, and advent of code. Now besides hacker cup, the rest are dead. Sad. :(
- npinsker 1y ago
  I get what you're saying, but Advent of Code isn't dead? The leaderboard is dead, but if that's an important part of it to you, I'm optimistic there'll be some nice large public groups you can join somewhere.
tonetheman 1y ago
[dead]
kevinwang 1y ago
A little sad for me because I've enjoyed the global leaderboard aspect for years but of course my second reaction has to be to take a step back and appreciate all the joy that this one man has given us for all these years. And he's made it clear from that start that he never intended the global leaderboard to be the point, plus AI the last few years messes it all up. All good things come to an end, and I gotta appreciate the good run that we had, and the voluntary work of one person that gifted it to us.
- timeon 1y ago
  Based on time-zone, it wasn't really global.
12345hn6789 1y ago
End of an era. Thank you! It was a blast.
spion 1y ago
I wonder if it would've felt more natural if the "part 2s" of the puzzles became separate days instead. (Still 12 days worth of puzzles, but spread out across 24 days, with maybe one extra, smaller, easier puzzle for the last day to relax)
- Cupprum 1y ago
  I was thinking the same! This would be great , have a puzzle each other day. But i trust the organizers are going to do a great job and we will have fun either way.
- matsemann 1y ago
  Then the 24h between part1 and part2 could be spent trying to predict what part2 will be, or generalize the solution to see if you can handle whatever part2 throws at you. For instance the lanternfish ( https://adventofcode.com/2021/day/6 https://adventofcode.com/2021/day/6 ) one would expect to just have a higher number, so if one solved part1 iteratively one could make an educated guess for a fast part2 solve.
Insanity 1y ago
Although number of puzzles != time investment, selfishly I’m down for this change. As I get older it’s harder to find time to complete them, so I’m hoping this also relieves some of the (artificial) pressure to keep up with daily puzzles by decreasing the time spent per day.
thrance 1y ago
I did exactly half of the puzzles last year, and I think my case is not too uncommon. I am perfectly fine with this, only maybe it would be slightly better if the puzzles came out every two days instead, to ward off the FOMO and give us more time per puzzle?
Fnoord 1y ago
> If you're still stuck, maybe ask a friend for help, or come back to the puzzle later. You can also ask for hints in the subreddit. Not sure why this is OK but prompt engineering isn't? If someone wants to test that skillset, let them be instead of asking 'please don't'. Especially given the competitive nature is now optional.
- sltkr 1y ago
  I think this is a holdover from before, where the request was to not use AI before the leaderboard is filled up. If you are stuck and have to ask a friend for help, you are not going to make the (global) leaderboard anyway. In practice, nothing prevents you from using AI to solve the problems anyway.
  - a_e_k 1y ago
    The subreddit also had a policy of not unlocking the megathread until the leaderboard was filled up. So any hints there will also be too late for the making the global leaderboard. And the old About noted what you just said about there being nothing preventing someone from using AI: > If you want to use AI to help you solve puzzles, I can't really stop you, but I feel like it's harder to get better at programming if you ask an AI to do the programming for you.
- kanbara 1y ago
  you can't see how asking for a hint and formulating using your own brain is totally different than telling the AI to code the entire thing for you?
  - Fnoord 1y ago
    I've never vibe coded. You could ask AI a question in the same way you'd ask a friend (what if you don't have friends?) I guess my point is there is a difference between using AI and overusing AI.
makach 1y ago
Appreciate it, for me it became this stress inducing xmas calendar. Did it a couple of years and then I stopped because it wasn't fun anymore. Some puzzles were really hard and I took it really personally when I couldn't complete them.
andix 1y ago
I love it, starting mid-december a lot of my free time goes into Christmas preparations and at the same time the puzzles went up in difficulty. I never made it past #18 in real time. Not because of the difficulty, I just had to do other things. Another option would be to add some breaks, maybe a day off every 2 or 3 days.
phforms 1y ago
It is unfortunate, but I can absolutely understand it. Keeping up such open-ended, time-consuming projects year after year while the person doing it changes inevitably – their personal life, habits, job, interests, etc. – must feel like a burden at some point, even if it is out of love and passion (I know that from personal experience with my voluntary work, from which I had to take a break after 10+ years). I am truly thankful for all of Eric Wastls work on Advent of Code, no matter how much time he can invest and how much puzzles we get. I already look forward to the challenge at the start of autumn and consider what programming language I will choose (this year it’ll be Uiua :)). I am very slow at these puzzles, so I mostly quit at around puzzle 12 anyway, but I learn so much from them and they are a lot of fun.
rileytg 1y ago
This prompted me to try out claude code on last years... To absolutely no surprise, it looks like the model was trained on advent of code. For the day 2 challenge, I put in this prompt: for each row in input.txt, identify all the rows where: 1. the columns either all increase or decrease 2. the increase/decrease is >1 and <4. count total # of rows that match this. write a python script It solved it very quickly. However... It's solution code included this comment: Check if a report is safe based on two criteria: │ │ 1. All levels must be either all increasing or all decreasing │ │ 2. Adjacent differences must be between 1 and 3 (inclusive) This is odd because I never mentioned reports or levels... However the challenge does: The unusual data (your puzzle input) consists of many reports, one report per line. Each report is a list of numbers called levels that are separated by spaces. For example:
- rileytg 1y ago
  Follow up: > how did you know to call them reports and levels? Good catch! I noticed that terminology in the input file structure. When I read input.txt, I saw the data format - each row contained multiple space-separated numbers. I actually made an assumption based on common Advent of Code patterns (this looks like a typical AoC problem structure). The terms "reports" and "levels" aren't explicitly stated in your requirements - you just said "rows" and "columns". I should have used more generic terms like: - "row" instead of "report" - "values" or "numbers" instead of "levels" Would you like me to update the script to use more neutral terminology that matches your original description?
  - TrainedMonkey 1y ago
    That is somewhat plausible given the deluge of advent of code solution repos on github.
thomasqbrady 1y ago
This is fantastic in every way. The hardest part of participating for me was finding more time closer to the holidays as the challenges got harder. Fewer, better challenges, with more space between them and the end of the year is a brilliant solution. So excited and grateful.
- simmonmt 1y ago
  Fewer challenges, but no more space between them. They still come out daily starting December 1st. They just stop coming sooner.
  - clbrmbr 1y ago
    Now it’s The 12 Days of Code.
    - sltkr 1y ago
      Technically the 12 Days of Christmas are from December 25 to January 5, but close enough.
      - niij 1y ago
        That's honestly be a better time to have it. Most white collar employees are off work or things are at least quiet those weeks.
- SmellTheGlove 1y ago
  I came here to say almost the same thing - except I don't think there's more space between the puzzles. From the post: Why did the number of days per event change? It takes a ton of my free time every year to run Advent of Code, and building the puzzles accounts for the majority of that time. After keeping a consistent schedule for ten years(!), I needed a change. The puzzles still start on December 1st so that the day numbers make sense (Day 1 = Dec 1), and puzzles come out every day (ending mid-December).
- SmellTheGlove 1y ago
axpy906 1y ago
I don’t think I ever could do all the 25 so this is fine with me.
OisinMoran 1y ago
Alright, I'm finally going to give it a shot this year!
MBCook 1y ago
I’ve always wanted to try this, but I always seem to end up hearing about it too late. This sounds like a nice change to me. But since this is the first time I’ve been to the site, I’ve never seen it before. Oh my God it’s completely unreadable. Seems only FF supports alternate stylesheets, so that’s not a useful solution for me. Shame. I’m not going to fight that hard to read a website. I’m really sorry, readability is just table stakes. Oh well.
- ricardobeat 1y ago
  So you’ve never used a terminal? Most browsers have a “reader mode” which might help you.
  - MBCook 1y ago
    Sure I have. They’re not that color scheme, they have enough contrast to be readable. “Use reader mode”. It’s clearly a problem. There is an entry in the FAQ about it. The solution just isn’t useful to 98% of browser users. If the author is willing make alternate color schemes with acceptable contrast users should be able to use them without switching browsers.
nikolay 1y ago
I love Advent of Code, but my family hates it! Especially the timing in PST! While I understand the challenges of having a global contest, the way this is organized leads to discrimination if, in some countries, you need to be up in the middle of the night.

480 points by vismit2000 1y ago

Last year was the first time I completed all 25 and I was looking forward to reprising that. It’s alright. I guess I could always try older problems.

radiator 1y ago
That is a healthy attitude. I wonder if everyone "missing" AoC has already solved all the past problems.

vismit2000 1y ago

From FAQ: "Why did the number of days per event change? It takes a ton of my free time every year to run Advent of Code, and building the puzzles accounts for the majority of that time. After keeping a consistent schedule for ten years(!), I needed a change. The puzzles still start on December 1st so that the day numbers make sense (Day 1 = Dec 1), and puzzles come out every day (ending mid-December)."

shrx 1y ago

One of the reasons I stopped participating was that as the second half of december was approaching I had less and less free time for solving the puzzles. So to me it is also a welcome change, I will try to finish it again this year.

jojobas 1y ago
Doesn't help that the puzzles become increasingly tricky and you can't just solve them as you sip your coffee anymore (although some apparently can).
seabombs 1y ago
Agree. It was getting in the way of me spending time with the family because I was distracted mulling over the puzzles. I had thought last year that they could peak the difficulty around the middle of the month and bring it down a bit leading up to the 25th. But just finishing it earlier is probably better IMO.
NoboruWataya 1y ago
Same, I love AoC but I just never have time for them (December is always the busiest time of year in my job). I would have liked if a puzzle was released every 2 days though so it still spanned the whole month. Would be more aligned with the advent calendar concept. In fact in previous years the puzzles have always had two parts so if that format is still being retained there will still effectively be 24 puzzles.
- emerongi 1y ago
  Spreading the two parts across separate days would be interesting. There would be an extra element of trying to predict what part 2 will be like.
- KeplerBoy 1y ago
  Then again who has the time in the latter half of December? I completed AoC on time every day once and let's just say it wasn't a very pleasant experience. Very similar to sticking to a too ambitious, too rigid gym schedule. Still time well spent, but it sucks out all the joy.
  - qwertfisch 1y ago
    I participated in the very first AoC and solved all problems, but the last 6 or 7 only way after Christmas, when I had more time, holidays, and I just wanted to complete the contest. Then there was another AoC … and no, I didn’t solve all the problems, not even close. In most years I got 24 to 36 stars, 2018 and 2020 I did not participate. Last year I was in a good place, wanted to practice a new programming language (Crystal). And I was determined to get every puzzle solved in 24 hours. And I did it, but for two or three puzzles it was oh so frustrating. With angry screams, searching help in the IRC, for two puzzles even not understanding for many hours how it works. And then at 1:52 AM (puzzles start at 6AM for me) I found the solution. It was liberating and gratifying, but at the same time so tiring and frustrating. The only reason I went along with was the overall goal, getting a permanent record of having solved every puzzle on the first day. And I am happy about it (in hindsight, it was the last opportunity for doing so with 25*2 puzzles), and now I never need or want to do it again. Or do I? Only 12 days of trying to get solutions are much more possible.
rich_sasha 1y ago
I once has this half serious idea to do "Advent of Parenting", with one problem per month, and you start after Christmas. As in, youre so delayed you start in the New Year, and have time for one problem per month. But hey I didn't have the time to do it. Kids...
- Scarblac 1y ago
  When my kids move out, one of my plans is to finally start the first Advent of Code.
  - skeeter2020 1y ago
    you'll have a new set of excuses then, too.
    - zelphirkalt 1y ago
      Question is, when you write down the numbers of excuses and the number of things you could so each month, as in your input .... How many months do you have less excuses available than problems you could solve? Part 2: The kids want to check whether your algorithm works correctly. For that they have devised a formula: Position of the month in the input, multiplied with the number of problems not excusable to not solve, summed up for all months of the year. What is the checksum of your excuses - problems - report?
- nekusar 1y ago
  > But hey I didn't have the time to do it. Kids... Yep, dont have the kids. And no plan to.
  - croon 1y ago
    I'm firmly of the belief that no one should have kids unless they really really want them and are content with the sacrifice it entails, but also: My kids have been the absolute best source of grey hairs in my life.
mid-kid 1y ago
This. The best I've ever achieved is maybe 15 puzzles on one year, with gaps for the days I missed. And this was when the puzzles were incrementally building upon implementing a bytecode interpreter, which was relatively little work per day. Once I miss my first day, playing catch up is an effort in vain, as the puzzles start taking 4+ hours to solve each, solving multiple in one day is a full-time commitment. Most advents of code I've fallen off sharply after day 7-10, if not sooner, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this. I think this is a welcome change.
- runekaagaard 1y ago
  Yeah, totally this. I've had so much fun with AoC, learning nim, elixir at the same time. I would normally tap out around the same place on the first dynamic programming puzzle which just takes me so long to wrap my head around each time (tips anyone? :)). I welcome these new changes, and what ever the format are very greatful for all his hard work!
  - kadoban 1y ago
    > tips anyone? :) They're not as magical as they seem, you just need some practice. Read over the dynamic programming section in https://cses.fi/book/index.php https://cses.fi/book/index.php (pdf link near the top is the free English version), then do a few on https://cses.fi/problemset/ https://cses.fi/problemset/ . You'll be able to handle the AoC dynamic programming ones with _no_ problem at all.
- zrobotics 1y ago
  Most years, I end up finishing the puzzles in January. Same reason- I end up missing a day due to schedule issues. Since it's just a 'for fun' challenge, it isn't the end of the world if you fall behind a bit. That said, this doesn't work if you are doing this as part of a group.
confidantlake 1y ago
For me I always had the time I just didn't have the ability. I solved all of them in 2017 but never really got close any other year.
ihuman 1y ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if the creator has metrics that show that most people drop off around the halfway mark, for the exact same reason
- boccaff 1y ago
  You can see aggregated results on `stats` [1] for every year. In general, half the people drop in the first 3-4 days. For last year, by day 12 there is less than 1/5 of day 01. While the stats do count people that completed later, the shape appears to track well with what I saw during the events since 2021. [1] https://adventofcode.com/2024/stats https://adventofcode.com/2024/stats
philipwhiuk 1y ago
I have the opposite problem - I never get started until work wraps up.
bmitc 1y ago
I stopped doing it because it felt like I was restarting every puzzle rather than building on top of something, and that's not all that interesting to me. I'm not judging the process, as that's just my personal perspective about what's interesting to me.
- narimiran 1y ago
  > building on top of something If you want that, try AoC 2019. Day 2, day 5, and then every odd day till the end: day 7, 9, 11, ... 23.

thomascountz 1y ago

Whenever there's a change like this, my gut reaction is to grieve and try to imagine ways that things could be kept the same. After thinking, "maybe puzzles could be designed by a group instead of an individual and they could share the work," I then thought, "and couldn't an LLM help?" And with that, I had to remind myself: Advent of Code isn't about there being 25 puzzles, and so maintaining volume at all costs has nothing to do with it. And aren't we so lucky that it isn't! Aren't we lucky to have had the prior 500+ challenges given as gifts over the years! Aren't we lucky to have a great demonstration of humility and care! Aren't we lucky to have 12 new gifts to look forward to this year! Thank you!

petesergeant 1y ago
I’ve been trying to design a puzzle for a game this year that humans can solve but LLMs can’t. I’ve come up with one, but it was hard work! It’s based around message cracking.
- ekimekim 1y ago
  There was one in a previous AoC that I think stumped a lot of AI at the time because it involved something that was similar to poker with the same terminology but different rules. The AI couldn't help but fall into a "this is poker" trap and make a solution that follows the standard rules.
  - petesergeant 1y ago
    Interesting! Maybe that’s the general way to approach these things
  - sunrunner 1y ago
    Was that 2023's Day 7 'Camel Cards' [1]? [1] https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/7 https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/7
  - gf000 1y ago
    I mean, wasn't pretty much the second half of all AoC exercises beyond LLM capabilities? I remember there being multiple accounts trying to one-shot AoC and all ended on day 10 or so.

nikanj 1y ago

Tryhards ruin everything, part n Make a fun little christmas calendar to bring joy to the people, get turned into a gamified warzone where people use AI and bots to try to get onto the global leaderboards - possibly because getting on them might net you a job at FAANG

ozim 1y ago
Fun part is that world mostly doesn’t really work like that and they don’t really get the job.
ifh-hn 1y ago
[dead]
iamflimflam1 1y ago
People - the reason why we can’t have good things.
fjfaase 1y ago
The temptation to start a competative private leader board will be great, just for the mentioned reason. I have a reference my scores in my CV. The competative part of AoC is one of the things that I find attractive and also has taught me some valuable lessons about coding, like taking some time to review the code the first time before submitting. I experienced several times that I spend of time to debug a small bug due to a minor error, that I could have caught had I spend some time reviewing. Especially with the first puzzles, I try to get it right the fitst time with respect to compiling and execution. I will search for a pure C private group to join that only allows a small library for things like reading the input as an array of strings.
- 0x264 1y ago
  On your CV ? Has any recruiter or hiring manager ever commented on it, or said the mention gave you an advantage ?
  - fjfaase 1y ago

lexicality 1y ago

I see the leaderboard is gone too. Unfortunate but entirely predictable given how the last 2 years went. That being said, I was worried he'd cancel the entire thing, so this is still good news!

mid-kid 1y ago
>predictable given how the last 2 years went QRD? Was it AI?
- lexicality 1y ago
  Yeah, a bunch of people started going on witch hunts against the people where were obviously using AI (eg ~30 second solve times) and also anyone who had "AI" anywhere in their bio. IMO the levels it got to was wildly out of proportion, even if these people were cheating (say what you will about AI, but if the rules say not to use it and you do: you're a cheater) but maybe I would have felt differently if the timezones meant I could take part, rather than waking up to drama.
  - 10hr 1y ago
    sounds like the competition had challenges even before AI or any rules about AI or not. I never followed this challenge aside from doing a few 10 years ago in college. If speed to problem completion matters though, then question release time will be brutal for some.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - fuglede_ 1y ago
    Just to not feed the witch hunt further, note that human 30 second solve times can be entirely possible for the easiest puzzles, with enough experience, practice, and a bit of risk-taking; see e.g. https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/1 https://adventofcode.com/2021/leaderboard/day/1 part 1. But the 4 second solution times we saw last year are not, no matter how you look at it.
- 1y ago

aronhegedus 1y ago

I've participated in the past, and felt like I always drop off around day 18+ because of holidays etc. I personally also didn't like when part II of a question felt like a completely new question, instead of a neat extension of the previous one. I am very happy that this is something that's available to do, for free though. I see advent of code as a good excuse to dabble with a new language, usually with a few people from work.

defanor 1y ago

On the bright side, this will lead to a more relaxed December schedule. I do not compete for the leaderboard, but trying to solve the puzzles on the days they are released (to keep it in the spirit of an advent calendar), and the puzzles towards the end sometimes take me a considerable chunk of the day to solve, which is tricky to combine with the regular schedule, and may be rather stressful (though still a nicer kind of "stressful", as you get on celebrated holidays).

sunrunner 1y ago
This matches my experience, and I've been 'nervously' anticipating this year's Advent of Code. I managed to keep to the spirit last year and get everything done by Christmas day (though admittedly with some days bleeding over into other days due to pesky family/other commitments), but even this relied on having the last week or so of the month be relatively free for me. While I've usually been able to do the first half of the month's puzzles in the day before breakfast, over lunch and in the evening, the increasing difficulty does mean that later puzzles can really eat into a day, particularly if you happen to go down a bad path for your solution.

sunrunner 1y ago

I genuinely look forward to Advent of Code every year (whatever that says about me) and next year's one is always on my mind, so naturally I'm somewhat sad about this as the one-puzzle-a-day up to Christmas day just felt very neat, and I liked the mostly gentle initial difficulty curve up to the more 'spiky' questions later. Having said that, having done a few years now I think the following things end up feeling consistent across years: The first 10-ish (give or take) days were always simple enough that experienced programmers can likely spit them out during their daily standup. This isn't bad, as I think they're great for newer programmers to get a bit of algorithmic and data structure thinking practice, but they can definitely feel a bit same-y once you've done a few years. This isn't a critique of how AoC was structured, just an observation of how it can feel after you've seen a few years. Having said this, I'm sure I'll miss the gentle warm-up this year. I wonder what this means for the difficulty curve i.e. the almost-inevitable path-finding question will appear on Day 5 and not Day 15? I'm sure Eric has thought this through but I wonder if an every-other-day approach (perhaps with a 'softer' puzzle for Christmas day itself) would be popular, as I imagine people balancing a job and/or family while wanting to do this might appreciate having two days for the more challenging later puzzles. On the other hand, free time for this generally does get more tight as you get closer to the end of the month and the puzzles get more challenging, so this approach does just make a chunk of space for people later in the month, and individuals can choose to keep up with the puzzles on release day if they can or just not worry about it and let things roll over. Unfortunately, I guess I'll have to actually go and see my family this Christmas instead of ignoring the mandatory visits, which seemed like a fair sacrifice to keep up with calendar ;) > It takes a ton of my free time every year to run Advent of Code, and building the puzzles accounts for the majority of that time. After keeping a consistent schedule for ten years(!), I needed a change. Completely fair. As Eric says in some of his presentations on this it takes him about three or four months of his spare time, so this is more than understandable. Props to him for keeping this up consistently with his day job for the last ten years. > The global leaderboard was one of the largest sources of stress for me, for the infrastructure, and for many users. I don't mind this so much personally (outside of a morbid curiosity in the really fast participants) although I know people that were really invested in it, but there were some genuine points of contention for people that were interested in the leaderboard: - The global puzzle unlock time, while explained by Eric himself in his presentations, does make being on the leaderboard impractical for people outside of time zones where the actual release time is friendly for that. For me it's 5am, and the only time I ever came even close (while also being nowhere near...) was when I happened to be up at that time due to insomnia (not caused by AoC). - It sounded like an infrastructural point of pain as the single global release time coupled with submissions-by-country-size and how keen some of the puzzle solvers are makes for a great initial traffic burst with a long tail (also mentioned on the behind-the-scenes videos). - It naturally favoured people with an interest in these kinds of puzzles, so the selection bias in the leaderboard is inherently skewed towards a) the subset of people that are choosing to do this out of genuine personal interest and then b) the subset of those that are likely to also be interested in competitive programming-type challenges. This is natural, but I think it does make the leaderboard less relevant for the majority of participants. - The inevitable contention of the use of 'AI' just to be on the leaderboard Anyway, I'll just end this with a thank-you to Eric himself for designing and running this consistently for the last ten years as it's something I've come to really enjoy, the community is very lucky to have this, and I hope these changes make it possible for him to continue doing this with lower physical costs to him personally and perhaps lower stress for the participants that just enjoy the puzzles for learning and the rare opportunity to write simple programs to solve problems. For interested watchers: - 'Eric Wastl – Advent of Code: Behind the Scenes' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oNOTknRTSU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oNOTknRTSU - 'Keynote: Advent of Code, Behind the Scenes - Eric Wastl' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ8DcbhojOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ8DcbhojOw Edit: Typos

cod1r 1y ago

This is sort of a bummer but as long as Eric feels less stressed and more happy, I'm all for it.

kykat 1y ago

why not a puzzle every two days instead of ending it mid-december?

exegete 1y ago
You will have that option
0x264 1y ago
You can definitively play like that if you want to. At day 2n (n > 0) you do the puzzle of day n.

HiPhish 1y ago

If he has cut the number of puzzles in half, why not then release a new puzzle every other day? That would make more sense because AoC would still run until Christmas, and it would give people more time per puzzle. Maybe unlock part 2 of each puzzle the day after the puzzle has been posted, so there still something new every day. I once tried participating, but gave up halfway through because one puzzle per day was just too much time. If it was one puzzle every two days it would be more manageable.

akerl_ 1y ago
If they’re released every day for 12 days, you can do a puzzle every other day. If the were released every other day, people who wanted to do them for 12 straight days could not.
- rootlocus 1y ago
  > If the were released every other day, people who wanted to do them for 12 straight days could not. If they instead waited 12 days, they could start with the 6 puzzles already released, and then have enough puzzles to solve once a day for the next 12 days.
rbits 1y ago
One puzzle per day was too much for me as well, but I just spent more than one day per puzzle. And now that the leaderboards are gone, there's no reason to you have to do them the same day.

rawling 1y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45665217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45665217

gooodvibes 1y ago

No more leaderboard too! These look like positive changes, a 2x longer event isn't 2x more fun or 2x more satisfying to participate in. After skipping the past couple of years, I feel like I'm more likely to give it a go again this year.

klustregrif 1y ago

Really appreciate thise changes! Both the reduction in puzzles which means less work, but overall I don’t think it’s going to make the event less fun. And removing the global leaderboard is good, rather than trying to police how people solve the puzzles just let people have fun on their own boards with people they know.

sandruso 1y ago

Big AoC fan these are welcomed changes. I've always started strong but fell off as it was increasingly more difficult to solve puzzles during nighttime. And after you miss one you kinda loose the streak. This year I'm going to combine it also with mine noaidecember challenge to get a little more dopamine from problem solving.

bilsbie 1y ago

Last year a lot of the problems were multi steps. Why not just break up the steps and get to 25? Also after day three I fell hopelessly behind. 12 might be fine.

mkovach 1y ago

Awesome! Yy usual 5-to-7-day output scramble will now look vastly more competent, ah, well, complete. Not actually be smarter, mind you, but radiate the comforting glow of effort by someone who has their temporal ducks in a suspiciously photogenic row. Improvement? No. But the illusion of improvement? Practically Nobel-worthy. I'm already enjoying this change.

TeMPOraL 1y ago
I'm not sure how to parse all this, but I really appreciate the mental image of temporal ducks in a photogenic row. Sounds great for my Star Trek themed, very slow Sunday morning.
- mkovach 1y ago
  Been toiling with a new client, ingesting their documentation, and improving it with a Hitchhiker's Guide twist, so the next person needs less caffeine and weeps less. It is bleeding into other aspects, but it's my pleasure to help with your Sunday morning imagery!

few 1y ago

This is completely tangential but as someone who used to be a competitive programmer in the 2010s, I feel like this year marked the end of an era for me. I don't have time to do regular codeforces/atcoder/leetcode rounds (and the rampant AI cheating is pretty demotivating). So the big annual rituals for me to keep my "competitive programmer" label were: fb hacker cup, google code jam, topcoder TCO, and advent of code. Now besides hacker cup, the rest are dead. Sad. :(

npinsker 1y ago
I get what you're saying, but Advent of Code isn't dead? The leaderboard is dead, but if that's an important part of it to you, I'm optimistic there'll be some nice large public groups you can join somewhere.

tonetheman 1y ago

[dead]

kevinwang 1y ago

A little sad for me because I've enjoyed the global leaderboard aspect for years but of course my second reaction has to be to take a step back and appreciate all the joy that this one man has given us for all these years. And he's made it clear from that start that he never intended the global leaderboard to be the point, plus AI the last few years messes it all up. All good things come to an end, and I gotta appreciate the good run that we had, and the voluntary work of one person that gifted it to us.

timeon 1y ago
Based on time-zone, it wasn't really global.

12345hn6789 1y ago

End of an era. Thank you! It was a blast.

spion 1y ago

I wonder if it would've felt more natural if the "part 2s" of the puzzles became separate days instead. (Still 12 days worth of puzzles, but spread out across 24 days, with maybe one extra, smaller, easier puzzle for the last day to relax)

Cupprum 1y ago
I was thinking the same! This would be great , have a puzzle each other day. But i trust the organizers are going to do a great job and we will have fun either way.
matsemann 1y ago
Then the 24h between part1 and part2 could be spent trying to predict what part2 will be, or generalize the solution to see if you can handle whatever part2 throws at you. For instance the lanternfish ( https://adventofcode.com/2021/day/6 https://adventofcode.com/2021/day/6 ) one would expect to just have a higher number, so if one solved part1 iteratively one could make an educated guess for a fast part2 solve.

Insanity 1y ago

Although number of puzzles != time investment, selfishly I’m down for this change. As I get older it’s harder to find time to complete them, so I’m hoping this also relieves some of the (artificial) pressure to keep up with daily puzzles by decreasing the time spent per day.

thrance 1y ago

I did exactly half of the puzzles last year, and I think my case is not too uncommon. I am perfectly fine with this, only maybe it would be slightly better if the puzzles came out every two days instead, to ward off the FOMO and give us more time per puzzle?

Fnoord 1y ago

> If you're still stuck, maybe ask a friend for help, or come back to the puzzle later. You can also ask for hints in the subreddit. Not sure why this is OK but prompt engineering isn't? If someone wants to test that skillset, let them be instead of asking 'please don't'. Especially given the competitive nature is now optional.

sltkr 1y ago
I think this is a holdover from before, where the request was to not use AI before the leaderboard is filled up. If you are stuck and have to ask a friend for help, you are not going to make the (global) leaderboard anyway. In practice, nothing prevents you from using AI to solve the problems anyway.
- a_e_k 1y ago
  The subreddit also had a policy of not unlocking the megathread until the leaderboard was filled up. So any hints there will also be too late for the making the global leaderboard. And the old About noted what you just said about there being nothing preventing someone from using AI: > If you want to use AI to help you solve puzzles, I can't really stop you, but I feel like it's harder to get better at programming if you ask an AI to do the programming for you.
kanbara 1y ago
you can't see how asking for a hint and formulating using your own brain is totally different than telling the AI to code the entire thing for you?
- Fnoord 1y ago
  I've never vibe coded. You could ask AI a question in the same way you'd ask a friend (what if you don't have friends?) I guess my point is there is a difference between using AI and overusing AI.

makach 1y ago

Appreciate it, for me it became this stress inducing xmas calendar. Did it a couple of years and then I stopped because it wasn't fun anymore. Some puzzles were really hard and I took it really personally when I couldn't complete them.

andix 1y ago

I love it, starting mid-december a lot of my free time goes into Christmas preparations and at the same time the puzzles went up in difficulty. I never made it past #18 in real time. Not because of the difficulty, I just had to do other things. Another option would be to add some breaks, maybe a day off every 2 or 3 days.

phforms 1y ago

It is unfortunate, but I can absolutely understand it. Keeping up such open-ended, time-consuming projects year after year while the person doing it changes inevitably – their personal life, habits, job, interests, etc. – must feel like a burden at some point, even if it is out of love and passion (I know that from personal experience with my voluntary work, from which I had to take a break after 10+ years). I am truly thankful for all of Eric Wastls work on Advent of Code, no matter how much time he can invest and how much puzzles we get. I already look forward to the challenge at the start of autumn and consider what programming language I will choose (this year it’ll be Uiua :)). I am very slow at these puzzles, so I mostly quit at around puzzle 12 anyway, but I learn so much from them and they are a lot of fun.

rileytg 1y ago

This prompted me to try out claude code on last years... To absolutely no surprise, it looks like the model was trained on advent of code. For the day 2 challenge, I put in this prompt: for each row in input.txt, identify all the rows where: 1. the columns either all increase or decrease 2. the increase/decrease is >1 and <4. count total # of rows that match this. write a python script It solved it very quickly. However... It's solution code included this comment: Check if a report is safe based on two criteria: │ │ 1. All levels must be either all increasing or all decreasing │ │ 2. Adjacent differences must be between 1 and 3 (inclusive) This is odd because I never mentioned reports or levels... However the challenge does: The unusual data (your puzzle input) consists of many reports, one report per line. Each report is a list of numbers called levels that are separated by spaces. For example:

rileytg 1y ago
Follow up: > how did you know to call them reports and levels? Good catch! I noticed that terminology in the input file structure. When I read input.txt, I saw the data format - each row contained multiple space-separated numbers. I actually made an assumption based on common Advent of Code patterns (this looks like a typical AoC problem structure). The terms "reports" and "levels" aren't explicitly stated in your requirements - you just said "rows" and "columns". I should have used more generic terms like: - "row" instead of "report" - "values" or "numbers" instead of "levels" Would you like me to update the script to use more neutral terminology that matches your original description?
- TrainedMonkey 1y ago
  That is somewhat plausible given the deluge of advent of code solution repos on github.

thomasqbrady 1y ago

This is fantastic in every way. The hardest part of participating for me was finding more time closer to the holidays as the challenges got harder. Fewer, better challenges, with more space between them and the end of the year is a brilliant solution. So excited and grateful.

simmonmt 1y ago
Fewer challenges, but no more space between them. They still come out daily starting December 1st. They just stop coming sooner.
- clbrmbr 1y ago
  Now it’s The 12 Days of Code.
  - sltkr 1y ago
    Technically the 12 Days of Christmas are from December 25 to January 5, but close enough.
    - niij 1y ago
      That's honestly be a better time to have it. Most white collar employees are off work or things are at least quiet those weeks.
SmellTheGlove 1y ago
I came here to say almost the same thing - except I don't think there's more space between the puzzles. From the post: Why did the number of days per event change? It takes a ton of my free time every year to run Advent of Code, and building the puzzles accounts for the majority of that time. After keeping a consistent schedule for ten years(!), I needed a change. The puzzles still start on December 1st so that the day numbers make sense (Day 1 = Dec 1), and puzzles come out every day (ending mid-December).
SmellTheGlove 1y ago

axpy906 1y ago

I don’t think I ever could do all the 25 so this is fine with me.

OisinMoran 1y ago

Alright, I'm finally going to give it a shot this year!

MBCook 1y ago

I’ve always wanted to try this, but I always seem to end up hearing about it too late. This sounds like a nice change to me. But since this is the first time I’ve been to the site, I’ve never seen it before. Oh my God it’s completely unreadable. Seems only FF supports alternate stylesheets, so that’s not a useful solution for me. Shame. I’m not going to fight that hard to read a website. I’m really sorry, readability is just table stakes. Oh well.

ricardobeat 1y ago
So you’ve never used a terminal? Most browsers have a “reader mode” which might help you.
- MBCook 1y ago
  Sure I have. They’re not that color scheme, they have enough contrast to be readable. “Use reader mode”. It’s clearly a problem. There is an entry in the FAQ about it. The solution just isn’t useful to 98% of browser users. If the author is willing make alternate color schemes with acceptable contrast users should be able to use them without switching browsers.

nikolay 1y ago

I love Advent of Code, but my family hates it! Especially the timing in PST! While I understand the challenges of having a global contest, the way this is organized leads to discrimination if, in some countries, you need to be up in the middle of the night.