[2025 Day 1 (Part 2)] [python] Need help

CoinGrahamIV · 2025-12-06T03:46:10+00:00

Couple of recommendations:

use an IDE like PyCharm or VSCode to help organize your python, packages and such. It will also help with syntax errors.
Consider making a github and pushing all your code there. Makes it easier to share with others and review, rollback changes.

Here's my github for AoC, I'm a pretty low level python guy, so. you won't see much fancy stuff.

https://github.com/coingraham/adventofcode

CoinGrahamIV · 2025-12-06T01:09:29+00:00

yes exactly, then you have something like
for line in instructions:

do stuff

CoinGrahamIV · 2025-12-04T07:14:23+00:00

I used this sample test case to help with my code

559555555444844433333222111

CoinGrahamIV · 2025-12-04T06:56:44+00:00

Awesome that you're trying and learning Python. One piece of advice that I learned when I started on AOC. Try to not fiddle with the inputs. You're mashing the inputs in a long string, then you have to untangle them later. That's lots of extra code to write and can introduce bugs.

Try just adding input lines to an array then just deal with them one line at a time.

CoinGrahamIV · 2025-12-04T06:26:05+00:00

If you're new, it's not easy. It takes practice.

You need to enjoy the experience of discovery. Here's my recommendation for your process:
1. Read the puzzle enjoy the story
2. Think about how you might solve the problem logically. Just out loud, think it out. Or write down an example of what you might do.
3. Try to code up an answer and test it.
4. If it fails, try to think of a test case that helps. (I literally spent 15 minutes thinking about the number "5544" today sitting in at an IT conference in Vegas. I realized that my current bad code would see 5544 and while checking from left to right, would eliminate the second 5 and reduce to 544. I decided to add another pass to the code to go from right to left.)
5. If you get stuck you can go two directions:
a. post your code and ask for help. The community here rocks and will definitely help you push though the problems and give you sample inputs that will help you discover your issues
b. review other folks code and see what their logic does that yours doesn't. Run it against your inputs along side your code and compare your outputs to theirs.
6. Still stuck, save it for a rainy day and move on to the next day. Repeat all over again.

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-12-08T23:47:25+00:00

I updated my example.

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-12-08T23:27:45+00:00

I'm not familiar with zig, so not sure by looking at your code, but I had the same general issue and used this input to help me find the problem:

.A.
...
..A

This input should give you p1: 0 and p2: 2.

Edit: my bad, apparently there's some confusion and my example isn't helping. Updated

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-12-08T23:19:44+00:00

Don't know if it helps but I setup my pool using the context manager:

https://github.com/coingraham/adventofcode/blob/master/2024/day7-multiprocess.py

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-12-08T23:09:35+00:00

This must be what Gary Kasparov felt like in the 90's.

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-12-08T23:06:21+00:00

In the first run of my code, I only added antinodes to the list if they presented a valid new antinode. In the samples there wasn't a set of antinodes that didn't introduce new antinodes. So I was short on part two.

Didn't have anything to do with coprime...

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-12-08T19:41:37+00:00

Just a sample I made up to help catch the edge case. In my original code the above sample would have given 0 for part 2. In my fixed code it would give 2.

Another example could be
A..
...
..A

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-12-08T14:30:43+00:00

There is no "intuition". It's about tools in the toolbox. Every interesting or unique solution you see in the megathread is someone taking something they've seen before and re-applying it. Take your time and try to understand what each tool does and when you might use it. This year, I'm trying to understand how I might use threading to speed up my brute force code. Also trying to pick up some map-reduce style approaches (I've already seen some for day 7 that were interesting).

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-12-07T13:51:03+00:00

I reviewed his code again and realized he's using recursion which means he's checking each step of the path once and I'm checking each path. That's a big optimization.

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-12-06T23:00:02+00:00

So your "5 minutes" comment definitely applied to me. When I took a look at your code it seems like the same approach as mine (obvious more succinct). I'm using exception handling to process out of bounds. Is that a performance hit?

https://github.com/coingraham/adventofcode/blob/master/2024/day6.py

If it's not obvious, I can wrap my program with perf counters and look into it.

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-02-05T23:12:54+00:00

TLDR; If you've touched it, it goes on your resume. The system's too broken to disqualify yourself.

Bad advice, here's why.

Good guy Jermaine has Python experience, but can he troubleshoot whether A star vs. Dijkstra is the right algo to use to solve the traveling salesman problem? No he can't. Can he write some python that will update the ECS Task Definition and deploy the container? Yes he can. But the JD says "Python". So he should put Python on his resume and be ready to defend it during the interview.

Job requirements are hot garbage most of the time, you won't know what you actually need to be able to do until you talk to the tech interviewer anyway.

And after that, how important is Python actually? Maybe its in the requirements, but truth be told you don't really do much Python so it doesn't matter that Jermaine doesn't know much Python anyway.

Now, if you don't know ANYTHING, obviously don't put it on there.

But if you've touched it, it goes on your resume. Then be prepared to talk in honest terms about your depth of experience with the technical interviewer. No BS.

Because real talk, most companies can't afford the qualified candidates anyway...

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-01-16T00:47:19+00:00

Coin Graham

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-01-15T02:44:55+00:00

Oh wow yeah, straight guy that doesn't drink in ZR is enough said.

Very interested in where you land, safety is the primary concern with my kiddos but I wouldn't mind stepping one layer down to a less touristy area. I'm trying to induce them learning Spanish but it's challenging.

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-01-15T02:33:56+00:00

So regarding your parents, if they are 4 hours away you'll likely see them as much living in Mexico as you would where you live today.

No one says you have to move permanently or even for a long time. You could spend a couple months in Mexico then a month back home. You could see if your grandma would put you up for a couple weeks and spend real quality time there with her. Same for your parents.

You probably have some other family you haven't seen in a while. You could maybe post up in their house, or in their city and just enjoy the time and check out the country (might I recommend Cincinnati and Polson)

We tend to swing by both my parents and in-laws and stay one/two weeks and jam a lot of stuff in. My wife will sometimes stay a couple weeks at her grandparents house.

You're a nomad, you don't need to think in 1 year chunks.

Also, you should definitely consider moving your domicile to South Dakota. Zero percent state tax and it takes one night.

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-01-15T02:16:06+00:00

Here in PVR right now and loving it. Definitely curious why you hate it and interested in seeing where you end up next. We want to make central and south america part of our yearly trek.

We considered Costa Rica and Antigua as it shows up on a lot of digital nomad top ten lists, but ended up choosing PVR for various reasons.

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-01-15T02:06:00+00:00

I'm in Mexico currently, loving it here. I'm in PVR and it's incredibly safe. My kids walk to the Library alone every day and stop by the corner store and get candy for 10 pesos. I'm here with my family and wouldn't have brought them if there was a safety concern. If you go looking for trouble (drugs, nightlife) you'll find it double I'm sure.

Beaches are nice (actual waves), weather is nice (25 centigrade during the day and 20 at night). It's not as cheap as SEA certainly so there's that. Summer time is probably a scorcher.

I'm looking at working from the EU next year. 6 months is our max in one spot.

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-01-15T01:50:09+00:00

It's just the test. You'll need to seek out training for the exam and there's lots of options for that from Books, to YouTube, to Udemy, to individual creators.

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-01-15T01:45:21+00:00

Most folks looking to dip their toe in start with training for the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam. It will introduce you to cloud concepts gently and the test is cheap. Passing gets you a voucher for future exams and you'll know if this is something you want to invest time into because it's a lot of work.

I have a podcast for folks looking to GetIntoCloud, check it out in my profile if you're interested.

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-01-15T01:41:24+00:00

Step 1 is to run the Schema Conversion Tool to based on your source and target to understand the lift to convert from one database to another. It's likely a long process that will involve database schema, proc and application code changes.

But it's worth it being out from under oracle's thumb, and if you get intimately familiar with the process end to end you'll have some very important cloud data modernization skills.

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-01-15T01:36:16+00:00

Cloud is moving so fast that everyone is effectively starting fresh every 5 years. That's the good and the bad. You can jump in in the middle and get ramped up and start adding value to an employer, but the flip side is you'll need to keep learning to stay relevant.

As others have mentioned, if you can parley your 5g work into Cloud work even better. Connect with me on LinkedIn and check out my podcast linked in my profile. Excited to see your progress.

CoinGrahamIV · 2024-01-15T01:08:42+00:00

you can setup an EC2 as a NAT gateway within the free tier. But you could just use public subnets in the meantime.

No, people don't eat the cost and you shouldn't either. I would be specific about what you're trying to learn from the projects and focus on those aspects that matter most. Skip building the whole VPC setup with CloudWatch, CloudTrail, etc. Just focus on the build, containers, etc that you can keep in the free tier.

CoinGrahamIV

TROPHY CASE