[HN Gopher] Advent of Code 2025: Number of puzzles reduce from 2...
___________________________________________________________________
Advent of Code 2025: Number of puzzles reduce from 25 to 12 for the
first time
Author : vismit2000
Score : 387 points
Date : 2025-10-26 08:19 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (adventofcode.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (adventofcode.com)
| vismit2000 wrote:
| From FAQ: "Why did the number of days per event change? It takes
| a ton of my free time every year to run Advent of Code, and
| building the puzzles accounts for the majority of that time.
| After keeping a consistent schedule for ten years(!), I needed a
| change. The puzzles still start on December 1st so that the day
| numbers make sense (Day 1 = Dec 1), and puzzles come out every
| day (ending mid-December)."
| shrx wrote:
| One of the reasons I stopped participating was that as the second
| half of december was approaching I had less and less free time
| for solving the puzzles. So to me it is also a welcome change, I
| will try to finish it again this year.
| seabombs wrote:
| Agree. It was getting in the way of me spending time with the
| family because I was distracted mulling over the puzzles.
|
| I had thought last year that they could peak the difficulty
| around the middle of the month and bring it down a bit leading
| up to the 25th. But just finishing it earlier is probably
| better IMO.
| jojobas wrote:
| Doesn't help that the puzzles become increasingly tricky and
| you can't just solve them as you sip your coffee anymore
| (although some apparently can).
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Same, I love AoC but I just never have time for them (December
| is always the busiest time of year in my job).
|
| I would have liked if a puzzle was released every 2 days though
| so it still spanned the whole month. Would be more aligned with
| the advent calendar concept. In fact in previous years the
| puzzles have always had two parts so if that format is still
| being retained there will still effectively be 24 puzzles.
| emerongi wrote:
| Spreading the two parts across separate days would be
| interesting. There would be an extra element of trying to
| predict what part 2 will be like.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| Then again who has the time in the latter half of December?
|
| I completed AoC on time every day once and let's just say it
| wasn't a very pleasant experience. Very similar to sticking
| to a too ambitious, too rigid gym schedule. Still time well
| spent, but it sucks out all the joy.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I once has this half serious idea to do "Advent of Parenting",
| with one problem per month, and you start after Christmas. As
| in, youre so delayed you start in the New Year, and have time
| for one problem per month.
|
| But hey I didn't have the time to do it. Kids...
| Scarblac wrote:
| When my kids move out, one of my plans is to finally start
| the first Advent of Code.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| you'll have a new set of excuses then, too.
| mid-kid wrote:
| This. The best I've ever achieved is maybe 15 puzzles on one
| year, with gaps for the days I missed. And this was when the
| puzzles were incrementally building upon implementing a
| bytecode interpreter, which was relatively little work per day.
|
| Once I miss my first day, playing catch up is an effort in
| vain, as the puzzles start taking 4+ hours to solve each,
| solving multiple in one day is a full-time commitment.
|
| Most advents of code I've fallen off sharply after day 7-10, if
| not sooner, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this. I think
| this is a welcome change.
| runekaagaard wrote:
| Yeah, totally this. I've had so much fun with AoC, learning
| nim, elixir at the same time.
|
| I would normally tap out around the same place on the first
| dynamic programming puzzle which just takes me so long to
| wrap my head around each time (tips anyone? :)).
|
| I welcome these new changes, and what ever the format are
| very greatful for all his hard work!
| kadoban wrote:
| > tips anyone? :)
|
| They're not as magical as they seem, you just need some
| practice. Read over the dynamic programming section in
| https://cses.fi/book/index.php (pdf link near the top is
| the free English version), then do a few on
| https://cses.fi/problemset/ . You'll be able to handle the
| AoC dynamic programming ones with _no_ problem at all.
| zrobotics wrote:
| Most years, I end up finishing the puzzles in January. Same
| reason- I end up missing a day due to schedule issues. Since
| it's just a 'for fun' challenge, it isn't the end of the
| world if you fall behind a bit. That said, this doesn't work
| if you are doing this as part of a group.
| confidantlake wrote:
| For me I always had the time I just didn't have the ability. I
| solved all of them in 2017 but never really got close any other
| year.
| ihuman wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if the creator has metrics that show
| that most people drop off around the halfway mark, for the
| exact same reason
| boccaff wrote:
| You can see aggregated results on `stats` [1] for every year.
| In general, half the people drop in the first 3-4 days. For
| last year, by day 12 there is less than 1/5 of day 01. While
| the stats do count people that completed later, the shape
| appears to track well with what I saw during the events since
| 2021.
|
| [1] https://adventofcode.com/2024/stats
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| I have the opposite problem - I never get started until work
| wraps up.
| thomascountz wrote:
| Whenever there's a change like this, my gut reaction is to grieve
| and try to imagine ways that things could be kept the same.
|
| After thinking, "maybe puzzles could be designed by a group
| instead of an individual and they could share the work," I then
| thought, "and couldn't an LLM help?"
|
| And with that, I had to remind myself: Advent of Code isn't about
| there being 25 puzzles, and so maintaining volume at all costs
| has nothing to do with it.
|
| And aren't we so lucky that it isn't! Aren't we lucky to have had
| the prior 500+ challenges given as gifts over the years! Aren't
| we lucky to have a great demonstration of humility and care!
| Aren't we lucky to have 12 new gifts to look forward to this
| year!
|
| Thank you!
| petesergeant wrote:
| I've been trying to design a puzzle for a game this year that
| humans can solve but LLMs can't. I've come up with one, but it
| was hard work! It's based around message cracking.
| ekimekim wrote:
| There was one in a previous AoC that I think stumped a lot of
| AI at the time because it involved something that was
| _similar_ to poker with the same terminology but different
| rules. The AI couldn 't help but fall into a "this is poker"
| trap and make a solution that follows the standard rules.
| petesergeant wrote:
| Interesting! Maybe that's the general way to approach these
| things
| sunrunner wrote:
| Was that 2023's Day 7 'Camel Cards' [1]?
|
| [1] https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/7
| gf000 wrote:
| I mean, wasn't pretty much the second half of all AoC
| exercises beyond LLM capabilities?
|
| I remember there being multiple accounts trying to one-shot
| AoC and all ended on day 10 or so.
| Cpoll wrote:
| Isn't that easily solved by changing the terminology before
| giving it to the LLM?
| huflungdung wrote:
| How many <$letter>s are in the word <word with $letters>
| Crespyl wrote:
| The bigger LLMs have generally figured out this specific
| problem.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Have a look at https://arcprize.org/
|
| They have hundreds of challenges that humans can solve in
| under a minute which LLMs can not. Seems the general trend is
| figuring out the rules or patterns of the challenge when
| there are few examples and no instructions.
| petesergeant wrote:
| Ah, it also needs to be challenging for humans. It's a
| prize to win something. I just didn't want people to throw
| the question into Claude Code.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Perhaps coding exercises that require 2d or 3d thinking, or
| similar. This is where I have seen LLMs struggle a lot.
| There are probably other areas too.
| loeg wrote:
| Just have to incorporate good judgement in some way.
| LPisGood wrote:
| For more examples of such problems check Jane street puzzles
| of the month
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > And with that, I had to remind myself: Advent of Code isn't
| about there being 25 puzzles
|
| Really? The name of the event is "Advent of Code". Having 25
| puzzles is easily its most strongly-determined aspect.
|
| You could argue for 23-29 puzzles, or perhaps for 5, but at 12
| what's the name supposed to refer to?
| eterm wrote:
| Well advent calendars traditionally had 24 doors.
| majoe wrote:
| This lead me done a rabbit hole on wikipedia:
|
| Advent calendars in their earliest forms were invented
| approx. 80 years ago.
|
| The four week advent period goes back to the 7th century
| and was introduced by pope Gregory I..
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > This l[e]d me done a rabbit hole on wikipedia:
|
| > Advent calendars in their earliest forms were invented
| approx. 80 years ago.
|
| Well, Wikipedia starts its "History" section in 1945,
| which is 80 years ago. But what it says about advent
| calendars in 1945 is that they were lower-quality
| reprints of earlier designs. This strongly implies that
| they weren't a new concept in 1945.
|
| The German wikipedia is more interested in the concept
| and cites the word _Adventskalenders_ to the novel
| _Buddenbrooks_ , which features one set in the year 1869
| but was published in 1901. Either way, the calendars were
| clearly an established cultural phenomenon well before
| 1945.
|
| Looking at the talk page (for the English article), it
| seems that the history section was provided by a
| "translation group" from their translation of a matching
| section of the German article. It's not clear why they
| began with the post-war period; the German page goes back
| much further than that, which was also true at the time
| they provided their translation. But this does explain
| why the English "history" section begins by referring to
| prior context that doesn't exist in the English article.
| this_user wrote:
| They still do in non-Anglo European countries where the
| main celebration is held on the evening of the 24th.
| matrss wrote:
| IMO "Advent of Code" only determines the timeframe in which
| it happens, not the amount of puzzles it must contain. It
| could just as well be four puzzles, one for each sunday of
| the advent, or any other amount, as long as they are released
| within those roughly four weeks before christmas.
| danielbln wrote:
| Eh, the implication has always been that it's a Christmas
| calendar where you open one door per day until it's
| Christmas eve - just with code riddles instead of
| chocolate.
| roetlich wrote:
| > one door per day until it's Christmas eve
|
| That would be 24.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| You also open one on Christmas. Some people consider
| Christmas more important than Christmas eve.
|
| https://www.hallmark.com/house-and-
| home/figurines/precious-m...
| atq2119 wrote:
| That really depends on which country you're in.
| akho wrote:
| Twelve nights of Christmas. Would also work better for me,
| calendar-wise :)
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| That would "require" a timeline shift for it to start on
| Christmas run until the Ephinany.
|
| Although I don't think anyone really knows what the 12 days
| of Christmas are anymore.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| We have a thing called "Three Kings" (aka. "three wise
| men") in Poland, that falls on Jan 6th. If My Math Is
| Correct(tm), there's 12 days between the Christmas day
| (Dec 25th) and Jan 6th, so maybe the song is about this
| period?
| dinkelberg wrote:
| Epiphany (GP had a typo) and Three Kings is the same
| occasion, in fact. Wikipedia:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday)
| akho wrote:
| Yes, and I would be glad to see such a shift.
|
| Shakespeare is still being read, I think.
| pfortuny wrote:
| This referes to the feast of the Epiphany, though, which is
| 12 nights _after_ Christmas...
| akho wrote:
| That's why I say it would've worked better for me, yes.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| No, Advent means that it goes for the four weeks prior to
| Christmas. It doesn't mean "one thing each day" during that
| duration.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_calendar
|
| Minimum one, sometimes two.
|
| (Also, Advent doesn't mean four weeks. Christmas might fall
| on a Monday.)
| riffraff wrote:
| I assumed it was "twelve days of Christmas"- related
| thomascountz wrote:
| I'm not arguing this point. I conceit, I thought the
| sentiment was obvious. If it wasn't--and if read literally--I
| thought that that statement was the weakest and most
| uninteresting part of what I shared. However, to my surprise,
| this statement, and its specific interpretation, is what
| people found compelling!
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Hate to be the... whoever I'm being right now, but names have
| meaning. It's the reason to have them in the first place.
|
| > _Advent of Code isn 't about there being 25 puzzles, and so
| maintaining volume at all costs has nothing to do with it._
|
| It's the _Advent_ of Code. Not "Random late year event with no
| religious / commercial tradition connotations whatsoever" of
| Code. The 25 is there in the name. It's the whole point :).
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Well, Christmas is cancelled this year I guess :(
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Not necessarily. If they insist on there being only 12
| puzzles, all they need to Save Christmas is to _start_ the
| event on Christmas day, and rename it to "12 Puzzles of
| Christmas" or "Advent of Three Kings of Code", or such --
| see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45710963.
| kleiba wrote:
| They could also publish the puzzles only every second
| day, I guess.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Give a kid half of an advent calendar and tell them to
| open the window every second day, let's see how long
| it'll keep their interest (I expect much less than 12
| days) :). That's not how Advent Calendars work!
| pajamasam wrote:
| We're not kids though...
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| Let your hair down man, it's christmas!
| riffraff wrote:
| That was my first thought too, and I'd prefer it, cause
| sometimes I'll get stuck on a problem, or I'm busy, or I
| forget, and I'd rather have one more day. Bur it's Eric's
| call in the end.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Or publish the harder version of the puzzle on a
| different day to the easier version.
| kleiba wrote:
| For Christian Advent to be exactly 25 days long, that would
| be a coincidence.
|
| Advent is not the time from December 1st until Christmas, it
| starts on whatever days the fourth Sunday before Christmas
| happens to fall on that year. This way, there are exactly
| four Sundays in advent.
|
| If Christmas itself should fall on a Sunday one year, it
| doubles as the fourth Sunday of Advent, i.e., then the first
| of Advent will be only three weeks earlier.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| All correct. Which is why I said religious slash
| _commercial_ tradition - Advent is first and foremost just
| another sales event, and for convenience of sellers and
| buyers ( _and_ their children) the commercial advent got
| regularized to 25 days, so the stock of calendars that
| failed to sell last christmas season can be put up to sale
| in the coming one.
| kleiba wrote:
| Agreed, I didn't mean to critique you!
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I appreciate you working out the math above! :).
|
| (I never could wrap my head around all this. I had enough
| problems with Easter events, where the math makes a
| detour through a Lunar calendar.)
|
| EDIT: And my memory of the Tradition is wrong too, it's
| supposed to be 24 - as confirmed by
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45710618, and
| corroborated the two "Paw Patrol" themed Advent Calendars
| I just found still stashed in my home office.
| kleiba wrote:
| The Sunday after the first full moon after March 21st
| (first day of spring) - what could possibly be confusing
| about that?!
|
| j/k ;-)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I still find it easier to explain it as "14 Nisan *
| _energetic hand wave_ *!!" :).
| SJMG wrote:
| Since we're all being exacting here... =p
|
| > (first day of spring)
|
| It's actually the March equinox. "Spring" is true only in
| the northern hemisphere. What's more it's the
| _ecclesiastical_ equinox, not the astronomical equinox,
| whose date actually varies depending on the year.
|
| Never mind that all this is descriptive of dating in
| countries that grew up with Western Christianity.
| Countries where Eastern traditions dominate often date it
| differently.
|
| All good will to you both = )
| kleiba wrote:
| +1 from me!
| geerlingguy wrote:
| If I were Christmas of code, it would start mid-June and
| end on Christmas Eve!
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| You're forgetting about Halloween, Black Friday/Cyber
| Monday, and the most recent Singles Day (11.11); the
| Commercial Calendar is steadily squeezing the Christmas
| Season into December and out of the rest of the year!
| timeon wrote:
| Commercial Halloween starts during October just after or
| parallel with October-fest. It ends before end of October
| because people buy things for an event before it starts.
| End of Halloween is when Commercial Christmas starts.
|
| There is no time for actual advent or winter calmness in
| general.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Wouldn't winter calmness be January or February, maybe
| March? You know coldest time in general on Northern
| Hemisphere?
| timeon wrote:
| I think you are right, that seems to be the case.
| tjr wrote:
| I decided to indulge in a Dunkin' pumpkin donut this
| morning, what with it being late October and the weather
| actually now fall-like. Apparently they have already
| discontinued them!
| toast0 wrote:
| > the Commercial Calendar is steadily squeezing the
| Christmas Season into December and out of the rest of the
| year!
|
| We can only hope. The Christmas song containment fields
| are weakening as we speak.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Right, my local grocery store moved Halloween stuff to
| where Diwali stuff was near the front of the store, and
| immediately put Xmas stuff where the Halloween stuff used
| to be, in a week's time it'll be a whole aisle of Xmas.
| bananaflag wrote:
| Anyway, this is Western Christianity.
|
| In Eastern Christianity, the Nativity Fast starts on a
| fixed day: November 15.
| akho wrote:
| Which happens to fall on November 28th, yes.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Technically the event needs to go for a certain number of
| days, but Advent doesn't mean puzzles must come every day.
| They can do puzzles every 2-3 days if they want to.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| > The 25 is there in the name. It's the whole point :).
|
| You're overly attached to the meaning of Advent, but you
| aren't even aware of the meaning. It doesn't mean exactly 25.
| This year Advent Sunday is November 30th.
|
| And the creator of Advent of Code can do whatever they want
| with it, despite the name. They've put an immense amount of
| effort into this for so long - if that had been me, I would
| have been incredibly disheartened to see people saying "the
| whole point is just 25".
| Sharlin wrote:
| If, as you claim, the association of 25 to "advent" is
| primarily commercial, that's much more of a reason to avoid
| that association. In any case it's very culture-specific. In
| many countries, including mine, Christmas Eve is the "main"
| event that people look forward to, and the number of "advent
| days" in calendars and such is 24. On the other hand,
| ecclesiastically there are four Advent Sundays, and the
| number of days is thus variable and also not really
| pertinent.
| akerl_ wrote:
| There are tons of advent calendars commercially sold that
| have fewer than 25 slots.
|
| It's safe to say this ship has sailed.
| looperhacks wrote:
| > The 25 is there in the name.
|
| This largely depends on who you're asking? I don't know
| anyone who wouldn't consider 24 the course correct number of
| Advent, simply because that's the common number here (we
| celebrate Christmas on the 24th). So 12 makes perfectly
| sense, just do every second day.
|
| There are also many groups who don't start on the 1st of
| December, but on the first Sunday of Advent. And probably
| many others.
| crote wrote:
| Advent calendars are used to count down the days. Doing one
| every _other_ day defeats the purpose.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| I thought the purpose was to be a fun thing we used to
| kill time over the holidays
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Advent is the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. 4 is in
| the name, not 25.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I thought it was meant to be like an Advent Calendar, which
| is normally 25.
| dangrie158 wrote:
| Not in all traditions. E.g. in Germany Christmas Eve is
| typically the last day so you only get 24.
| tcshit wrote:
| Yeah, in Sweden too.
| elygre wrote:
| Norway, too.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| And even in the places where it's 25 days, there's plenty
| of advent calendars that only have 12 doors - though
| they're typically budget versions of expensive calendars
| (eg a dram of whisky behind each door)
| mckn1ght wrote:
| Falsehoods programmers believe about time #604: all
| advent calendars have 25 slots
| Fnoord wrote:
| Winter Solstice is usually (not always) on 21th December.
| bcraven wrote:
| https://www.lego.com/en-gb/holiday-gifts/advent-calendars
|
| 24 doors on the Lego calendars too
| theodpHN wrote:
| Yep, Advent wreaths have 4 candles, so there's wiggle room
| to reduce the frequency further.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_wreath
| anamexis wrote:
| Advent is a liturgical season, not a set of 4 Sundays.
| Neither 4 nor 25 are "in the name."
| misja111 wrote:
| Advent comes from the Latin word adventus, which means
| "arrival" or "coming." It refers to the coming of Christ.
| There is no 4 in the name, no 24, 25 or whatever else.
| klausa wrote:
| You need to turn in your polish passport for publicly saying
| that the advent is 25, not 24 days ;P
| porphyra wrote:
| To be fair in the original Advent of Code the last day is
| just a freebie and not a real programming problem.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Right, mini-spoiler if you've never reached 50 stars for
| a year:
|
| The 50th star is awarded for having the other 49 stars
| and then basically clicking OK I think. If you've been
| diligently solving them in order, it means you
| effectively get two stars for your final 49th puzzle of
| the year on Christmas Day, which makes sense because then
| the puzzles are very hard and a "normal" puzzle wouldn't
| leave much time for other Christmas Day activities. But
| if you're the sort of person who often gives up on a day
| and never comes back you may never have seen this because
| you never got to 49 stars.
|
| You're not quite right that the Christmas Day puzzle is
| trivial - it's the first half of a maybe week 1 type
| difficulty puzzle, but there just isn't a second half:
|
| Here's the puzzle text for last year's Xmas Day (if you
| are logged in you can play, but even without it will
| explain the puzzle it just won't give you an input to
| test your solution):
|
| https://adventofcode.com/2024/day/25
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Right so since each problem has more than one part, we are
| back to advent of 24 problems.
| jayknight wrote:
| Really though, for Catholic and protestant churches, Advent
| starts the fourth Sunday before Christmas, so isn't always
| the same length. In Orthodox Churches, Advent is 40 days
| (starting Nov 15) just like Lent.
| hitarpetar wrote:
| > Hate to be the... whoever I'm being right now
|
| the word you're looking for is pedant
| collingreen wrote:
| "pedant who didn't look up their own point or consider
| other world perspectives before boldly declaring that the
| way they thought about it first was the only true way"
|
| In the spirit of pedantry, I added even more minor detail!
| paulcole wrote:
| > Hate to be the...
|
| You don't seem to hate it that much?
| celticninja wrote:
| Advent does not mean 25. It just means 'the coming', so 12,
| 25, 1, 8 are all acceptable lengths. And if you reay need it
| to be 24 you can calm it 0.5 per day.
| oytis wrote:
| It's a reference to a German tradition of Advent Calendar
| with 24 small doors. Every day from 1st to 24th of December
| children would open one door and find a candy, a picture, a
| small toy, a quest etc. depending on calendar's theme
| celticninja wrote:
| I get it, but Advent calendars are not just German. I am
| pretty sure they are common all over the western world
| where Xmas is celebrated. But Advent doesn't in any way
| mean 25.
| throwingrocks wrote:
| Geez. Do you really think the number matters? I would be
| grateful to the creator even if it was 3 days.
| gs17 wrote:
| I think the easiest way to have 24/25 of something would be to
| have the "part 2" for each puzzle get released the next day. It
| would probably ruin the momentum about as much as having days
| off would (as another alternative to make the timing fit
| "advent"), but there could be a fun extra layer of puzzle with
| a hint of what the part 2 will be so people can try to
| speculate and modify their code in anticipation.
| boccaff wrote:
| I am not aware of Eric saying something about that
| alternative, but this comment on reddit[1] makes a lot of
| sense to me:
|
| > Given that part 2 is often a very simple modification of
| part 1, this could lead to many of the days being total
| letdowns. I can enjoy a simple puzzle, but I'd be a bit
| disappointed if one day is a single line change to the
| previous day.
|
| I'd also add that not having to be worried everyday about
| something makes a lot of sense. He can have fewer days "on
| call" in December with.
|
| [1]https://www.reddit.com/r/adventofcode/comments/1ocwh04/cha
| ng...
| nikanj wrote:
| Tryhards ruin everything, part n
|
| Make a fun little christmas calendar to bring joy to the people,
| get turned into a gamified warzone where people use AI and bots
| to try to get onto the global leaderboards - possibly because
| getting on them might net you a job at FAANG
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| People - the reason why we can't have good things.
| fjfaase wrote:
| The temptation to start a competative private leader board will
| be great, just for the mentioned reason. I have a reference my
| scores in my CV. The competative part of AoC is one of the
| things that I find attractive and also has taught me some
| valuable lessons about coding, like taking some time to review
| the code the first time before submitting. I experienced
| several times that I spend of time to debug a small bug due to
| a minor error, that I could have caught had I spend some time
| reviewing. Especially with the first puzzles, I try to get it
| right the fitst time with respect to compiling and execution.
|
| I will search for a pure C private group to join that only
| allows a small library for things like reading the input as an
| array of strings.
| 0x264 wrote:
| On your CV ? Has any recruiter or hiring manager ever
| commented on it, or said the mention gave you an advantage ?
| fjfaase wrote:
| No, but I don't care. I guess that most hiring managers do
| not know what AoC is.
|
| Next week, I will be 64, and I am no longer searching for a
| full time job. In the past decade I only worked for 24 or
| 30 hours per week. I am financial independent and plan to
| only work freelance if there is some opportunity.
| Currently, I am not actively searching for a job.
| fjfaase wrote:
| I have created a private leaderboard which you can join with
| `1563228-d419ba6d.`
|
| The basic rule is: you are only allowed to use code you wrote
| yourself. That does include code you wrote before the start
| of the contest, for example, standard functions you wrote for
| earlier AoC editions.
| ozim wrote:
| Fun part is that world mostly doesn't really work like that and
| they don't really get the job.
| Udo wrote:
| I know this is an outsider position, but I always felt that the
| AoC leaderboard was a mistake. Very few people had the time,
| the commitment, and the capability of making it on there in a
| meaningful fashion, and it put an emphasis on something that
| didn't match the vibe of the event at all. If speedrunning the
| problem solving was the point, then why package every episode
| into an enjoyable little story?
|
| This also ties into the comments that AoC has become moot or
| was "ruined by LLMs". If you enjoy solving the problems,
| nothing should have changed for you. What's the difference if a
| given problem was already solved by an LLM, or a group of IQ
| 200 superhumans from MIT for that matter?
|
| As time marches on, there will eventually be absolutely nothing
| left where an unaugmented human outperforms a machine. That
| doesn't mean you have to stop enjoying things. In a few years
| at most, all programming will be purely recreational.
| robryan wrote:
| I liked the leaderboard prior to AI. Was fun to click through
| to various profiles and see who was in there and what their
| solutions looked like.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > In a few years at most, all programming will be purely
| recreational.
|
| That's a bold prediction given how much LLMs suck at
| programming today (and haven't really improved, either). I'm
| willing to believe that we will someday invent an AI that can
| program better than humans. I don't believe it'll be within a
| few years, because the current architecture shows no signs
| that it'll ever be able to get the job done.
| tjpnz wrote:
| You can put that on your resume and I guarantee nobody will
| check.
| lexicality wrote:
| I see the leaderboard is gone too. Unfortunate but entirely
| predictable given how the last 2 years went.
|
| That being said, I was worried he'd cancel the entire thing, so
| this is still good news!
| mid-kid wrote:
| >predictable given how the last 2 years went
|
| QRD? Was it AI?
| lexicality wrote:
| Yeah, a bunch of people started going on witch hunts against
| the people where were obviously using AI (eg ~30 second solve
| times) and also anyone who had "AI" anywhere in their bio.
|
| IMO the levels it got to was wildly out of proportion, even
| if these people were cheating (say what you will about AI,
| but if the rules say not to use it and you do: you're a
| cheater) but maybe I would have felt differently if the
| timezones meant I could take part, rather than waking up to
| drama.
| 10hr wrote:
| sounds like the competition had challenges even before AI
| or any rules about AI or not.
|
| I never followed this challenge aside from doing a few 10
| years ago in college.
|
| If speed to problem completion matters though, then
| question release time will be brutal for some.
| WJW wrote:
| The leaderboard has led to the same predictable discussion for
| as long as the AoC has existed. Recurring themes:
|
| - The puzzles get published in the middle of the night for most
| of Europe, can't we have a better system like scoring on
| <arbitrary other metric the poster likes better>.
|
| - It's weird that many of the pages say "just have fun, it's
| not a race" and then also there's a prominent leaderboard page
| to show who's currently ahead in the race.
|
| - There's been people taking the whole thing way too seriously
| from basically year 1, trying to load their puzzle input as
| fast as possible by polling every 10 ms and putting too much
| load on the servers.
|
| - Whether AI is allowed is always a super toxic discussion with
| no real outcome because you can't enforce it.
| emil-lp wrote:
| 6am or later for most of Europe is not middle of the night.
| tgv wrote:
| Then it's the middle of the night for the Americas...
| layer8 wrote:
| Yes it is. ;)
| andix wrote:
| 6am is the middle of the night for most software developers
| ;)
| surajrmal wrote:
| If they don't have children maybe.
| andix wrote:
| It's a tough decision: AoC or kids.
| matsemann wrote:
| Gonna miss it. So fun to see how fast one can parse the
| problem, figure out how to solve it while thinking of edge
| cases, and then actually write and run it. I've never been high
| up on the leaderboard, but enjoyed waking up early in December
| and give it a crack. Most often rank ~1000, a few times ~100.
|
| But I also understand the decision. Fun while it lasted, but
| I'll find other ways to have fun with AoC this year!
| aronhegedus wrote:
| I've participated in the past, and felt like I always drop off
| around day 18+ because of holidays etc.
|
| I personally also didn't like when part II of a question felt
| like a completely new question, instead of a neat extension of
| the previous one.
|
| I am very happy that this is something that's available to do,
| for free though. I see advent of code as a good excuse to dabble
| with a new language, usually with a few people from work.
| defanor wrote:
| On the bright side, this will lead to a more relaxed December
| schedule. I do not compete for the leaderboard, but trying to
| solve the puzzles on the days they are released (to keep it in
| the spirit of an advent calendar), and the puzzles towards the
| end sometimes take me a considerable chunk of the day to solve,
| which is tricky to combine with the regular schedule, and may be
| rather stressful (though still a nicer kind of "stressful", as
| you get on celebrated holidays).
| sunrunner wrote:
| This matches my experience, and I've been 'nervously'
| anticipating this year's Advent of Code. I managed to keep to
| the spirit last year and get everything done by Christmas day
| (though admittedly with some days bleeding over into other days
| due to pesky family/other commitments), but even this relied on
| having the last week or so of the month be relatively free for
| me.
|
| While I've usually been able to do the first half of the
| month's puzzles in the day before breakfast, over lunch and in
| the evening, the increasing difficulty does mean that later
| puzzles can really eat into a day, particularly if you happen
| to go down a bad path for your solution.
| sunrunner wrote:
| I genuinely look forward to Advent of Code every year (whatever
| that says about me) and next year's one is always on my mind, so
| naturally I'm somewhat sad about this as the one-puzzle-a-day up
| to Christmas day just felt very neat, and I liked the mostly
| gentle initial difficulty curve up to the more 'spiky' questions
| later.
|
| Having said that, having done a few years now I think the
| following things end up feeling consistent across years:
|
| The first 10-ish (give or take) days were always simple enough
| that experienced programmers can likely spit them out during
| their daily standup. This isn't bad, as I think they're _great_
| for newer programmers to get a bit of algorithmic and data
| structure thinking practice, but they can definitely feel a bit
| same-y once you 've done a few years. This isn't a critique of
| how AoC was structured, just an observation of how it can feel
| after you've seen a few years. Having said this, I'm sure I'll
| miss the gentle warm-up this year.
|
| I wonder what this means for the difficulty curve i.e. the
| almost-inevitable path-finding question will appear on Day 5 and
| not Day 15?
|
| I'm sure Eric has thought this through but I wonder if an every-
| other-day approach (perhaps with a 'softer' puzzle for Christmas
| day itself) would be popular, as I imagine people balancing a job
| and/or family while wanting to do this might appreciate having
| two days for the more challenging later puzzles.
|
| On the other hand, free time for this generally does get more
| tight as you get closer to the end of the month and the puzzles
| get more challenging, so this approach does just make a chunk of
| space for people later in the month, and individuals can choose
| to keep up with the puzzles on release day if they can or just
| not worry about it and let things roll over.
|
| Unfortunately, I guess I'll have to actually go and see my family
| this Christmas instead of ignoring the mandatory visits, which
| seemed like a fair sacrifice to keep up with calendar ;)
|
| > It takes a ton of my free time every year to run Advent of
| Code, and building the puzzles accounts for the majority of that
| time. After keeping a consistent schedule for ten years(!), I
| needed a change.
|
| Completely fair. As Eric says in some of his presentations on
| this it takes him about three or four months of his spare time,
| so this is more than understandable. Props to him for keeping
| this up consistently with his day job for the last ten years.
|
| > The global leaderboard was one of the largest sources of stress
| for me, for the infrastructure, and for many users.
|
| I don't mind this so much personally (outside of a morbid
| curiosity in the really fast participants) although I know people
| that were really invested in it, but there were some genuine
| points of contention for people that _were_ interested in the
| leaderboard:
|
| - The global puzzle unlock time, while explained by Eric himself
| in his presentations, does make being on the leaderboard
| impractical for people outside of time zones where the actual
| release time is friendly for that. For me it's 5am, and the only
| time I ever came even close (while also being nowhere near...)
| was when I happened to be up at that time due to insomnia (not
| caused by AoC).
|
| - It sounded like an infrastructural point of pain as the single
| global release time coupled with submissions-by-country-size and
| how keen some of the puzzle solvers are makes for a great initial
| traffic burst with a long tail (also mentioned on the behind-the-
| scenes videos).
|
| - It naturally favoured people with an interest in these kinds of
| puzzles, so the selection bias in the leaderboard is inherently
| skewed towards a) the subset of people that are choosing to do
| this out of genuine personal interest and then b) the subset of
| _those_ that are likely to also be interested in competitive
| programming-type challenges. This is natural, but I think it does
| make the leaderboard less relevant for the majority of
| participants.
|
| - The inevitable contention of the use of 'AI' just to be on the
| leaderboard
|
| Anyway, I'll just end this with a thank-you to Eric himself for
| designing and running this consistently for the last ten years as
| it's something I've come to really enjoy, the community is very
| lucky to have this, and I hope these changes make it possible for
| him to continue doing this with lower physical costs to him
| personally and perhaps lower stress for the participants that
| just enjoy the puzzles for learning and the rare opportunity to
| write simple programs to solve problems.
|
| For interested watchers:
|
| - 'Eric Wastl - Advent of Code: Behind the Scenes' -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oNOTknRTSU
|
| - 'Keynote: Advent of Code, Behind the Scenes - Eric Wastl' -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ8DcbhojOw
|
| Edit: Typos
| cod1r wrote:
| This is sort of a bummer but as long as Eric feels less stressed
| and more happy, I'm all for it.
| kykat wrote:
| why not a puzzle every two days instead of ending it mid-
| december?
| exegete wrote:
| You will have that option
| 0x264 wrote:
| You can definitively play like that if you want to. At day 2n
| (n > 0) you do the puzzle of day n.
| HiPhish wrote:
| If he has cut the number of puzzles in half, why not then release
| a new puzzle every other day? That would make more sense because
| AoC would still run until Christmas, and it would give people
| more time per puzzle. Maybe unlock part 2 of each puzzle the day
| after the puzzle has been posted, so there still something new
| every day.
|
| I once tried participating, but gave up halfway through because
| one puzzle per day was just too much time. If it was one puzzle
| every two days it would be more manageable.
| akerl_ wrote:
| If they're released every day for 12 days, you can do a puzzle
| every other day.
|
| If the were released every other day, people who wanted to do
| them for 12 straight days could not.
| rootlocus wrote:
| > If the were released every other day, people who wanted to
| do them for 12 straight days could not.
|
| If they instead waited 12 days, they could start with the 6
| puzzles already released, and then have enough puzzles to
| solve once a day for the next 12 days.
| rawling wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45665217
| gooodvibes wrote:
| No more leaderboard too!
|
| These look like positive changes, a 2x longer event isn't 2x more
| fun or 2x more satisfying to participate in.
|
| After skipping the past couple of years, I feel like I'm more
| likely to give it a go again this year.
| klustregrif wrote:
| Really appreciate thise changes! Both the reduction in puzzles
| which means less work, but overall I don't think it's going to
| make the event less fun.
|
| And removing the global leaderboard is good, rather than trying
| to police how people solve the puzzles just let people have fun
| on their own boards with people they know.
| sandruso wrote:
| Big AoC fan these are welcomed changes. I've always started
| strong but fell off as it was increasingly more difficult to
| solve puzzles during nighttime. And after you miss one you kinda
| loose the streak.
|
| This year I'm going to combine it also with mine noaidecember
| challenge to get a little more dopamine from problem solving.
| bilsbie wrote:
| Last year a lot of the problems were multi steps. Why not just
| break up the steps and get to 25?
|
| Also after day three I fell hopelessly behind. 12 might be fine.
| mkovach wrote:
| Awesome!
|
| Yy usual 5-to-7-day output scramble will now look vastly more
| competent, ah, well, complete. Not actually be smarter, mind you,
| but radiate the comforting glow of effort by someone who has
| their temporal ducks in a suspiciously photogenic row.
|
| Improvement? No. But the illusion of improvement? Practically
| Nobel-worthy. I'm already enjoying this change.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I'm not sure how to parse all this, but I really appreciate the
| mental image of temporal ducks in a photogenic row. Sounds
| great for my Star Trek themed, _very_ slow Sunday morning.
| mkovach wrote:
| Been toiling with a new client, ingesting their
| documentation, and improving it with a Hitchhiker's Guide
| twist, so the next person needs less caffeine and weeps less.
|
| It is bleeding into other aspects, but it's my pleasure to
| help with your Sunday morning imagery!
| few wrote:
| This is completely tangential but as someone who used to be a
| competitive programmer in the 2010s, I feel like this year marked
| the end of an era for me.
|
| I don't have time to do regular codeforces/atcoder/leetcode
| rounds (and the rampant AI cheating is pretty demotivating). So
| the big annual rituals for me to keep my "competitive programmer"
| label were: fb hacker cup, google code jam, topcoder TCO, and
| advent of code. Now besides hacker cup, the rest are dead.
|
| Sad. :(
| npinsker wrote:
| I get what you're saying, but Advent of Code isn't dead? The
| _leaderboard_ is dead, but if that 's an important part of it
| to you, I'm optimistic there'll be some nice large public
| groups you can join somewhere.
| kevinwang wrote:
| A little sad for me because I've enjoyed the global leaderboard
| aspect for years but of course my second reaction has to be to
| take a step back and appreciate all the joy that this one man has
| given us for all these years.
|
| And he's made it clear from that start that he never intended the
| global leaderboard to be the point, plus AI the last few years
| messes it all up. All good things come to an end, and I gotta
| appreciate the good run that we had, and the voluntary work of
| one person that gifted it to us.
| timeon wrote:
| Based on time-zone, it wasn't really _global_.
| 12345hn6789 wrote:
| End of an era. Thank you! It was a blast.
| spion wrote:
| I wonder if it would've felt more natural if the "part 2s" of the
| puzzles became separate days instead. (Still 12 days worth of
| puzzles, but spread out across 24 days, with maybe one extra,
| smaller, easier puzzle for the last day to relax)
| Cupprum wrote:
| I was thinking the same! This would be great , have a puzzle
| each other day. But i trust the organizers are going to do a
| great job and we will have fun either way.
| matsemann wrote:
| Then the 24h between part1 and part2 could be spent trying to
| predict what part2 will be, or generalize the solution to see
| if you can handle whatever part2 throws at you. For instance
| the lanternfish ( https://adventofcode.com/2021/day/6 ) one
| would expect to just have a higher number, so if one solved
| part1 iteratively one could make an educated guess for a fast
| part2 solve.
| testdelacc1 wrote:
| Last year was the first time I completed all 25 and I was looking
| forward to reprising that. It's alright. I guess I could always
| try older problems.
| radiator wrote:
| That is a healthy attitude. I wonder if everyone "missing" AoC
| has already solved all the past problems.
| Insanity wrote:
| Although number of puzzles != time investment, selfishly I'm down
| for this change. As I get older it's harder to find time to
| complete them, so I'm hoping this also relieves some of the
| (artificial) pressure to keep up with daily puzzles by decreasing
| the time spent per day.
| thrance wrote:
| I did exactly half of the puzzles last year, and I think my case
| is not too uncommon. I am perfectly fine with this, only maybe it
| would be slightly better if the puzzles came out every two days
| instead, to ward off the FOMO and give us more time per puzzle?
| Fnoord wrote:
| > If you're still stuck, maybe ask a friend for help, or come
| back to the puzzle later. You can also ask for hints in the
| subreddit.
|
| Not sure why this is OK but prompt engineering isn't? If someone
| wants to test that skillset, let them be instead of asking
| 'please don't'. Especially given the competitive nature is now
| optional.
| makach wrote:
| Appreciate it, for me it became this stress inducing xmas
| calendar. Did it a couple of years and then I stopped because it
| wasn't fun anymore. Some puzzles were really hard and I took it
| really personally when I couldn't complete them.
| andix wrote:
| I love it, starting mid-december a lot of my free time goes into
| Christmas preparations and at the same time the puzzles went up
| in difficulty. I never made it past #18 in real time. Not because
| of the difficulty, I just had to do other things.
|
| Another option would be to add some breaks, maybe a day off every
| 2 or 3 days.
| phforms wrote:
| It is unfortunate, but I can absolutely understand it. Keeping up
| such open-ended, time-consuming projects year after year while
| the person doing it changes inevitably - their personal life,
| habits, job, interests, etc. - must feel like a burden at some
| point, even if it is out of love and passion (I know that from
| personal experience with my voluntary work, from which I had to
| take a break after 10+ years).
|
| I am truly thankful for all of Eric Wastls work on Advent of
| Code, no matter how much time he can invest and how much puzzles
| we get. I already look forward to the challenge at the start of
| autumn and consider what programming language I will choose (this
| year it'll be Uiua :)). I am very slow at these puzzles, so I
| mostly quit at around puzzle 12 anyway, but I learn so much from
| them and they are a lot of fun.
| rileytg wrote:
| This prompted me to try out claude code on last years... To
| absolutely no surprise, it looks like the model was trained on
| advent of code. For the day 2 challenge, I put in this prompt:
| for each row in input.txt, identify all the rows where: 1. the
| columns either all increase or decrease 2. the increase/decrease
| is >1 and <4. count total # of rows that match this. write a
| python script
|
| It solved it very quickly. However...
|
| It's solution code included this comment: Check
| if a report is safe based on two criteria:
| | | 1. All levels must be either all increasing or all
| decreasing
| | | 2. Adjacent differences must be between 1 and 3
| (inclusive)
|
| This is odd because I never mentioned reports or levels...
| However the challenge does: The unusual data
| (your puzzle input) consists of many reports, one report per
| line. Each report is a list of numbers called levels that are
| separated by spaces. For example:
| rileytg wrote:
| Follow up: > how did you know to call them
| reports and levels? Good catch! I noticed that
| terminology in the input file structure. When I read input.txt,
| I saw the data format - each row contained multiple
| space-separated numbers. I actually made an
| assumption based on common Advent of Code patterns (this looks
| like a typical AoC problem structure). The terms
| "reports" and "levels" aren't explicitly stated in your
| requirements - you just said "rows" and "columns". I
| should have used more generic terms like: - "row" instead
| of "report" - "values" or "numbers" instead of "levels"
| Would you like me to update the script to use more neutral
| terminology that matches your original description?
| thomasqbrady wrote:
| This is fantastic in every way. The hardest part of participating
| for me was finding more time closer to the holidays as the
| challenges got harder. Fewer, better challenges, with more space
| between them and the end of the year is a brilliant solution. So
| excited and grateful.
| simmonmt wrote:
| Fewer challenges, but no more space between them. They still
| come out daily starting December 1st. They just stop coming
| sooner.
| axpy906 wrote:
| I don't think I ever could do all the 25 so this is fine with me.
| OisinMoran wrote:
| Alright, I'm finally going to give it a shot this year!
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