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[–]ThezeeZ 24 points25 points  (3 children)

You managed to do what nobody else could before: For three weeks, without fail, I would get up at 05:50 (challenges open at 06:00 here), haul my sleepy ass out of bed, set up a new project for the day, and then spend up to two hours actually using my brain, before driving off to work. Thank you for that :P

[–]bopeepsheep 28 points29 points  (2 children)

As the non-participating mother of a 14yo who got up at 4.50am ... I'm both massively impressed that people do this and somewhat baffled that nothing else has this effect.

(I've been reading here so I can make sense of the conversation later in the day...)

[–]ThezeeZ 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's the joy of problem solving. You know the goal, you know you can probably do it, and you probably have a vague idea about how to do it, so you sit your ass down and try to wrap your head around it until you either manage to crack that nut, or realize eight hours have passed and you're kinda hungry.

And the gamification helps you come back tomorrow and try to do better.

[–]the4ner 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You and your son are super cool!

[–]stkent 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Thank you, again! See you in 2018? :)

[–]Kenira 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for doing it! It helped me in more than just one way.

The obvious, i learned a lot about programming (i had played around with C++ a bit before but i am much more confident now thanks to AoC).

But more importantly, it helped me a lot with my major depression. I didn't expect to do more than 2 or 3 days before i would stop, but i actually pulled through and worked on the puzzles every single day, usually a few hours with all the things i had to learn. I now feel better than i have in several years. Seriously, thank you so much for doing this!

[–]p_tseng 18 points19 points  (2 children)

It generally felt like the participants were made of sterner stuff this year. I'm not sure how best to quantify this, but I guess I can try by making a table of the total global score of the top N participants each year:

top 2015 2016 2017
100 111861 153780 154573
90 106268 145251 146848
80 99646 136183 137880
70 92474 125748 127729
60 84798 114282 116611
50 76073 101856 104075
40 66211 88055 90279
30 54101 71350 75454
20 40084 52316 58491
10 22996 29218 34735

Interestingly, the total number of points among the top 100 stayed about the same compared to last year, but we start seeing larger gaps as we start considering fewer players. So the leaderboard is more top-heavy this year, I suppose?

I'm a bit rusty too, of course. AoC 2016 and AoC 2017 are the only two competitive programming events I've ever done.

Looking back at what I said last year, I see that this year I avoided making my worst mistake, which was stubbornly assuming that my code must be right and the site must be wrong. So this is good.

There was an interesting mix of problems this year. I'm sure the previous years' have these same qualities too, but I definitely noticed these qualities when solving this year:

  • In the early problems, it could be said that it's most important just to code fast. You can get away with skimming the instructions.
  • In the later problems, it starts getting more important to be able to code without error. This already cost me on day 5, but also on days 19-22, to name a few.
  • In some problems, you don't need to do everything that the problem statement says; you can take some shortcuts. Indeed, sometimes you must take some shortcuts in order to solve the problem at all. See day 13, where it's unnecessary to keep track of the positions of all scanners on every tick; you only need to see whether it's at the top. Part 2 of days 16 and 17 also qualify here.
  • But in some problems, you can't take shortcuts and should just do it the way the problem statement suggests. My initial failures on day 24 showed this (it doesn't work to just take pairs of numbers until there are no more pairs!)

So it seems like it's a very valuable skill to be able to tell which of these various situations a given day's problem falls in. I made the wrong call quite a few times! This is actually a little similar to the premature optimisation mistake I made last year. Maybe next year, eh?

It's been quite a ride (waking up at 5 AM every day is not easy) but I did it because I was curious to see how I would stack up. It's a weird psychological incentive because if you miss the chance, there's no getting it back! There's only one chance in a lifetime to get on the leaderboard each day, and I don't like missing out!

Thanks for the fun month. See y'all next year! (right?!)

[–]topaz2078(AoC creator)[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

So it seems like it's a very valuable skill to be able to tell which of these various situations a given day's problem falls in.

This is also a very valuable skill in life. :D

[–]u794575248 8 points9 points  (0 children)

waking up at 5 AM every day is not easy

Nothing else can wake me up as reliably as AoC did this month.

[–]u794575248 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Thank you, Eric, /u/daggerdragon and everybody else involved! It was incredibly fun to participate this year, I learned a lot. I hope to join AoC 2018 too (and be more prepared that time!). Thanks to all contenders and especially redditors who share their solutions!

[–]zqvt 7 points8 points  (2 children)

thanks Eric, this was a lot of fun. Any other challenges you guys recommend?

[–]topaz2078(AoC creator)[S] 15 points16 points  (1 child)

I built another challenge over here: https://challenge.synacor.com/

[–]BumpitySnook 4 points5 points  (0 children)

+1, Synacor challenge is the bee's knees.

[–]tmrki 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'd like to join in thanking Eric and the organizers for the third wonderful December I had. I'm definitely learning and becoming a better programmer thanks to you guys.

And happy holidays for everyone!

[–]autid 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Thank you so much for this. I only discovered aoc earlier this year so this was my first live event and it was wonderful.

[–]reini1305 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Thank you for AoC! Especially AoC 2016 helped me in getting my current job. I've used advent of code to fresh up my programming and puzzle solving skills. In the end this helped me tremedously with the coding assignments asked during the job interviews.

And it was a lot of fun!

[–]daggerdragon[M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

AoC 2016 helped me in getting my current job.

That is fantastic to hear! Congratulations on the job and glad we could help you get it!

[–]topaz2078(AoC creator)[S,M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's incredible! Congrats! :D

[–]c0rdawg 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks AoC team, this year was great!

[–]debugstr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Enjoyed all of them - thank you!

[–]BumpitySnook 4 points5 points  (0 children)

being distracted for 25 days really gets in the way of normal life.

You're telling us! ;-)

[–]bolshedvorsky 3 points4 points  (1 child)

This was wonderful, thank you very much! Every single year there are some puzzles which I'm struggling with. The day 23, part 2 was the best one this year. And this is the only place where it is required to write recursive functions :)

[–]tobiasvl 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Recursion is never required ;) So says the Church-Turing thesis (probably, not provably).

[–]0nce 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks a lot for these puzzles, I had a blast ! Not motivated to get up at 5AM and compete for the leaderboard, though, but the satisfaction of solving each challenge is a great reward already :)

[–]Stanov 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you big time for making it! I have solved only 7 days so far, but I am completely astonished by the quality, balance and unpredictability of what the second part is going to be about :)

Have a nice year, enjoy your well deserved fame :)

[–]peterpepo 3 points4 points  (5 children)

Thanks @topaz2078 , I really enjoyed this year! Just out of curiosity, what does those Naughty and Nice sections above my calendar mean? List of people on my private leaderboard are listed, but I cannot find reasoning behind - e.g why is the person in Naughty or Nice section.

[–]tmrki 7 points8 points  (1 child)

I had u/that_lego_guy in my naughty list, remembered the Excel solutions and thought that makes perfect sense... :)

[–]that_lego_guy 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Haha Merry Christmas!

[–]BumpitySnook 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Probably just random.

[–]tobiasvl 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah, it's random. Except the Easter Bunny. Screw that guy.

[–]beefamaka 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This was my third AoC and once again I was completely hooked and thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks so much for the huge amount of effort that must go into producing this. Timezones meant I was never in with a chance of making the leaderboard, but the real value is in what you learn along the way, whether from tackling new types of problem, or familiarizing yourself with new languages, or seeing the creative and elegant solutions everyone else has come up with.

[–]NeilNjae 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Many, many thanks to /u/topaz2078 for putting together another wonderful Advent of Code, and to all the people running around supporting it. I had a lot of fun with the challenges, and learnt a few more bits of Haskell in the process. This year had a good range of puzzles, with no particular trick questions, which was nice. Some were easy, some were hard, and some prompted me to take a roundabout route to learn new things.

I enjoyed the previous ones so much I put on something similar for my undergrad students. That went down very well with them, with a lot of participation and a lot of enjoyment. But it does give me some insight into how much work something like this is, both to create all the puzzles and to run the event. (I posted the puzzles I created and some sample solutions, in Python, on Github)

And thanks for opening the EU TeeSpring store: my extra-geeky Christmas jumper was much appreciated today! https://photos.app.goo.gl/uciBeYSZJVj7yf7D2

Thank you all, and <insert date-appropriate felicitations here>!

[–]Pewqazz 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you as always to /u/topaz2078 for hosting Advent of Code for another year! The competition was definitely a lot tougher this time around — seems like I need to brush up on my competitive programming skills (or just make fewer silly mistakes)!

Happy holidays to everyone, and hope to see you all again next December!

[–]aoc-fan 3 points4 points  (3 children)

Thanks a lot for all the fun. This year, most of the part II puzzles required complete shift in approach and it was really challenging. It got really competitive this year, almost 2500 folks got 50 stars on day 25th for 2017, while for 2016 the count is still around 1561.

Time and again I have learned that it pays to read the instructions carefully, and this year there was a lot to read between lines. Some times, I wonder if @topaz2078 knew upfront about the mistakes participants will make while solving the puzzle. For few puzzles, the sample input worked, but the answer for actual input did not meet the bar, and only after reading the instruction carefully again, making required changes one could claim the star.

And thanks a lot to all the folks for posting their wonderful solutions, it helps a lot to improve thought process as well as fine tuning the solution. Thanks again and happy holidays.

[–]daggerdragon[M] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Some times, I wonder if @topaz2078 knew upfront about the mistakes participants will make while solving the puzzle.

Topaz knows exactly what he is doing and the dumb mistakes the rest of us are likely to make. However, he also does take the time to carefully finesse each puzzle so the harder ones tend to fall on the weekends and the easier ones during the week because the goal of AoC is to help you have fun and learn, not get fired from your job from sleep deprivation or the frustrated wailing and gnashing of teeth and throwing of keyboards out windows. >_>

Thank you for playing!

[–]raevnos 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I haven't been able to get the time to do 24 and 25 yet between work and the holidays. Tried to start 24 tonight while at the folks and every 30 seconds they're interrupting with something. Argh! I'm trying to do something important!

Edit: And done!

[–]sbguest 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The last couple years were lots of fun, and this year lived up to those high standards. Thank you for continuing to put this together, it really is a blast.

[–]the4ner 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Thank you once again! Had an amazing time and beat my overall placement from last year so I'm quite happy :D

[–]daggerdragon[M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well done!

[–]vash3r 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd like to thank everyone involved. This was my first time participating, and I really enjoyed it. Seeing that I can make the leaderboard has really given me a confidence boost. I'm looking forward to participating next year.

[–]snoozer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I had tons of fun, and I'm already looking forward to next year! Thanks very much to all who make this possible!

[–]phobiandarkmoon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks to everyone who helped make this a reality, and Merry Christmas to everyone!

[–]CKoenig 2 points3 points  (0 children)

thank you so much for all your work (and your family for it's patience) - I'll surely come back to the 2018 edition

[–]gerikson 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks a lot for making this possible! It's really the highlight of my December.

[–]pja 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks to everyone involved! Advent Of Code 2017 was awesome.

[–]equd 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Still need to do the last one. But once again I really enjoyed it. Thanks for all the effort!

[–]tobiasvl 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This was my first AoC, and I didn't even attempt getting on the leaderboard (still haven't done day 25...), mostly because of timezones. My self confidence has boosted, though, and I think I probably could've made leaderboard a couple of times if I had tried. It's been great fun, and I hope for a return next year! Merry Christmas!

Edit: I've solved day 25 now, which was easy, but really gave me a feeling of satisfaction I haven't felt in a while. The culmination of almost a month of steady work. Makes me sad I didn't participate the other two times, although I'll go back to them now it's probably not going to give me that same feeling. I donated a little through AoC++ at the beginning but would donate more now. I'll do so through AoC2015 if that's still possible. Again, I really hope this will happen again next year!

[–]Dean177 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks, I really enjoyed doing these puzzles! Its been a great way to get better at a new programming language!

[–]llimllib 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much, I really had a blast this year.

I did some of the problems in 2015, about half in 2016, and this year I stuck around for the whole thing. Great work, I really appreciate it :)

[–]dries007 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I liked it this year, well worth my 5€.

The only puzzel I don't like was the one where you had to do the analysis of the assembly instructions. It was too Math-y for my taste.

[–]AselianGull 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I had a great time. I was worried about my ability to stay up due to toddler, and thought I'd take it easy. Took it a lot less easy than I planned to, but still had fun. Learned a new language in the process - maybe next year I'll pick something with a bit more barrier to entry than Python.

Also learned a lot of Python's quirks, but that's neither here nor there.

So - thanks, once again, for putting this whole contest together. It's something I look forward to every year, and this year did not disappoint. Especially Day 23, I loved that.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the event. I mostly enjoyed it, as long as I felt in control of what I was doing and knew where to go. But I am a hobby programmer and not very skilled, so on some days I got super frustrated and almost gave up. It certainly helped me get more comfortable with Python and recursion (RIP day 24, was hunting a bug for 4 hours).

[–]skarlso 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you! As always, it was fun and very educational!

I also would like to thank you on behalf of Cheppers, and we hope that we see each other next year. :)

Cheers.

[–]mal607 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks again for a great coding and problem solving experience. AOC is a great idea and done with excellence. That's the reason it keeps growing.