29 votes

Advent of Code 2021

8 comments

  1. [2]
    JRandomHacker
    Link
    It's time for Advent of Code 2021! Last year, there was a subgroup just for AoC - I don't see one yet this year, but I hope there will be one. Chatting about AoC solutions is actually what...

    It's time for Advent of Code 2021!

    Last year, there was a subgroup just for AoC - I don't see one yet this year, but I hope there will be one. Chatting about AoC solutions is actually what motivated me to start posting on Tildes in the first place.

    What's everyone's goals this year? I'm continuing with my usual plan - solve in C# (my day-to-day language of choice) and do a moderate amount of leaderboard-chasing. I'm definitely not competitive-programmer-fast (and C# is not the best language to go for speed records, though also not the worst), but I managed to snag the #1 spot on last year's Tildes private leaderboard (join-code 730956-de85ce0c), and I'll be trying for it again.

    During the "off-season", I've been occasionally tinkering with re-implementing my solutions in Zig as a way to learn the language, so I might do some of that too. Zig has been lots of fun to learn, and AoC problems are great for getting to know a language, too.

    12 votes
    1. Deimos
      Link Parent
      I'll get the sub-group set up again—I kind of forgot that it would start tonight and not tomorrow.

      I'll get the sub-group set up again—I kind of forgot that it would start tonight and not tomorrow.

      13 votes
  2. [6]
    Kremor
    (edited )
    Link
    Is it possible to solve all the problems with SQL?

    Is it possible to solve all the problems with SQL?

    7 votes
    1. [3]
      whbboyd
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      SQL is Turing-complete, so yes, technically, but some problems are likely to be disproportionately difficult (and extremely difficult to make fast). To give you a taste of what this might look...

      SQL is Turing-complete, so yes, technically, but some problems are likely to be disproportionately difficult (and extremely difficult to make fast).

      To give you a taste of what this might look like, here's someone's solution to the first couple of 2019 AoC problems in SQL. It goes off the rails quickly.

      11 votes
      1. [2]
        teaearlgraycold
        Link Parent
        I would love to run that mandelbrot code but it gives me a syntax error in Postgres. Any idea if a specific RDBMS is needed?

        I would love to run that mandelbrot code but it gives me a syntax error in Postgres. Any idea if a specific RDBMS is needed?

        1 vote
        1. whbboyd
          Link Parent
          I don't have any idea. I poked through the author's Github profile and use of some Microsoft tech stacks would lead me to suggest MS SQL Server, but I don't know remotely enough about various SQL...

          I don't have any idea. I poked through the author's Github profile and use of some Microsoft tech stacks would lead me to suggest MS SQL Server, but I don't know remotely enough about various SQL dialects to fingerprint the code.

          1 vote