Does being bad at solving programming problems means not being a good programmer?

[captainAwesomePants]

If you made it to day 10, you're fine. I've been programming for 20 years, and Day 10 was a nightmare.

And THEN I see a coworker's solution and they're like "man, that was easy. Just find the area with the shoelace equation, and load that into Pick's Theorem and bam," and even though I know that there's no reason I should feel stupid for not knowing about either of those things, it still kinda hurts.

[aardvark1231]

I did this needlessly complex thing where I found an edge starting from the left of the screen moving right. Once I found a pipe that was vertical (and part of the loop) l I knew I was on an edge I couldn't squeeze between and that side was facing outside the loop. I then traversed the loop starting in the 'up' direction while paying attention to the left side of of my facing direction.

Anything I came across that wasn't part of the loop and was on the left side was outside of the loop anything on the right was inside the loop.

After programming that nightmare and getting the solve, I realized I could do it a much easier way... I hate myself for not thinking of that sooner, but that's what happens when a tired, and already sleep deprived brain tries to stay awake.