treehouse/content/programming/blog/aoc.tree

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%% title = "Advent of Code feels"
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- I wonder if I'm the only one who can never get into [Advent of Code](https://adventofcode.com).
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- it's kind of weird seeing all these programmers around me having fun, trying out new technologies, solving these _very_ open-ended puzzles, yet I...
I can just _never get into it_.
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- I tried [time](https://github.com/liquidev/aoc-2018) and [time](https://github.com/liquidev/aoc-2019) and [time](https://github.com/liquidev/aoc-2022) again to get through AoC puzzles.
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- frankly 2022 was the furthest I've gotten so far. tells you just how much my perseverance improved! though maybe it's rather because it was my first time doing it with people at work, who knows :thinking:
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- I guess my main issue with solving AoC is that the puzzles... they don't really accomplish anything practical.
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- I'm a person who likes to solve real world problems, and while you _can_ learn a lot by doing AoC---be it programming languages, algorithms, optimisation---your solutions can't really be used for anything outside Advent of Code.
that's I think what hurts me the most.
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- another thing is that most projects I start nowadays are pretty much guaranteed to never finish.
there is always something to work on.
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- the treehouse is a fantastic example of this.
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- whereas with Advent of Code, your solutions will just be done and sit, gathering dust.
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- and probably worst of all, _Advent of Code puzzle solutions have no potential users_.
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- I like to build my software to solve real world problems---mostly my own, but I like to imagine it could one day become useful for someone else, too.
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- egoistic altruism, y'know.
it's why all the code I write outside of work is open source.
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- believe me when I say this, but it is _extremely_ fun to see your friends have fun with the software you build.
I remember having a lot of fun {-drawing dicks-} back when I was building [NetCanv][def:netcanv/repo].
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- at the same time [olekolek1000][def:person/olekolek1000] was competing with me by building his own multiplayer painting app, [MultiPixel](https://multipixel.oo8.dev)---it was some of the most fun I've had programming, ever!
combine competition with your friends enjoying your software, and you get a _huge_ amount of motivation to build something.
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- Advent of Code has a similar social aspect to it, but you never end up _using_ each other's solutions---maybe to verify your results, but once you do, you may as well throw your solutions away.
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- I just feel like Advent of Code never has a point.
sort of like puzzle games without a story.
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- your reward for solving a puzzle is more puzzles. yay!
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- which is fine if you're a person who enjoys the act of solving puzzles so much that having the game give you more puzzles fills you with excitement, but I'm not that kind of person.
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- of course Advent of Code _does_ have a story.
it's just that it's _extremely_ barebones, and I pretty much never find it very interesting.
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- so I dunno.
it just do be like that sometimes.
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- sometimes you're just not vibin' with something, and that's okay.