Another year of Advent of Code is in the books. The puzzles seemed much harder this year than they have in past years, but it was still a load of fun.
Once again, I didn't make it as far as I wanted to. I think I got somewhere around 7 1/2 Days completed, with some work done on the first part of a couple of more days. And once again, I'm reminded that some things probably shouldn't be done. SQL is a really bad language for most of these puzzles. But the ASCII art is fun to reveal. :-)
This year started with over 227K participants, which is a pretty good jump over their first year (2015) with around 87K people. The stories are always entertaining and the puzzles are always fun and challenging. It's been an amusing exercise, although the holiday time begins to get in the way towards the end.
Around the middle of the season, I was also made aware of another set of puzzles; this one more amenable to SQLish solutions: Hanukkah of Data. This one was a bit different, and a lot shorter, than Advent of Code, and I only completed a few days of the puzzles, but it's worth taking a look at. I'll try to complete it over the year, and probably play along again next year.
As far as Advent of Code, I'm not sure what language I'll try it again next year. I'd like to keep solving these with SQL, but they aren't really teaching me anything except how to not use SQL to solve procedural problems. It's been pretty amazing that I have been able to actually come to some of these answers, but my code is a whole different level of ugly. We'll see what next year brings.
To wrap this up for another year, I'd like to thank my fellow participants from the Working Code Podcast. Give them a listen and join the Discord. And next year, join with us for Advent of Code 2024.
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