1. December: Advent Of Code

If you talk about programming and advent calendar then there is no way to ignore https://adventofcode.com! On this website Eric Wastl presents each year genius task and riddles embedded in a funny story.

The AdventOfCode can be solved in any programming language or even with pen and paper. Eric will tell you a little story each day where you have to solve a task, riddle, or puzzle. Each task is explained with a little example. When you have implemented the code to solve the first puzzle and imported the individual puzzle data, you will get a code that you have to enter on the website. If the code is correct, then you will get a little more complicated variant of the current puzzle. Often you will have to refactor a lot of the code. Because even if the advanced version of the puzzle is similar to the basic task, it is more complicated and will make you scratch your head.

Tools

To make life easier for you, I have created the following two helper reports:

• Puzzle Data Container: Maintain input Data for each day
• Create packages: Create main package and sub packages for your user and year

Puzzle Data Container

With the puzzle data container you can store your individual input for each day and access it easily in your reports. The Data will be automatically converted into a VALUE command so that you can copy the values easily into your code.

There are three parts predefined. The first part is meant to be the simple demonstration data. The second part is your regular puzzle input. You can use the third part for any other input you might need.

Package Creator

With the package creator report you can create packages for each day for your user. You also may create only one package and organize only the reports by giving it an appropriate name.

Sources

You will find the sources here at github:

https://github.com/Ennowulff/advent-of-code-cockpit

Behind the Scenes

I can recommend to watch the Behind the scenes talk of Eric. In his talk he talks about how it started, how it’s going and a lot of funny and interesting insights.

I found the parts very interesting where Eric talked about how people get to the solution using paper work or excel and when people visualized the solution.

You can follow Eric on Twitter.

When participating in Advent Of Code I will promise you a lot of fun and tons of new learnings!