Looking forward to Advent of Code 2023
November is almost over, which means it'll soon be time for Advent of Code 2023!
In case you haven't heard about it Advent of Code is a yearly event where every day the website releases a new programming puzzle (so an advent calendar with programming problems instead of chocolates) with the difficulty increasing the closer we get to the 25th. Puzzles are tied together by a story that you uncover with each solution. You can solve the problems however you want, you get a set of "input data" and need to produce an output which is often just a single value. If you like programming problems you should consider checking it out!
I've been thinking about how to approach it, which language to use, and how much time to dedicate to it. As always I have many languages I want to play with (Gleam, Roc, Elixir), but I think I'll very probably be doing it with F#. I'm still unsure whether I'll be doing a web-based app thing with Fable or a nice console app with Spectre Console.
On one hand, getting to know Fable would allow me to create web-apps with F# and the ability to interop with Javascript is pretty appealing considering the great amount of libraries it has, not to mention the code could also probably run in a NodeJS environment. Also, I'm already pretty good with making web interfaces so there's no learning involved in how to handle the input and etc.
On the other hand, SpectreConsole is also very nice, and it has that modern-retro computer terminal appeal which is a great pull for me. Independently, these options are only for the presentation layer of the results and problem input so it doesn't really matter much.
If done properly these two will easily be interchangeable, so I guess I can always do it with whatever's easier and then work on having a nice presentation later on. However, having a nice platform is appealing and I know it's something that will motivate me to keep going.
Anyway, I don't have a clear way to determine which option is better though, I think I'll just let the decision mull in the back burner and see how I feel about it once the event starts.
Considering the sharp decrease in the amount of free time I have these days (a known side effect of having a baby) I don't know how far I'll get, and I'll probably need to work on the problems at night since I expect to be pretty busy at work for the whole month of December. Still, programming puzzles are fun (for me), and thematic problems are event better!
I think I'll mainly be participating with the goal of trying to break my record. I usually do around 10 days or so before desisting. Hopefully I can do at least 11 this year.