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It was midnight on December 1, 2015, when Eric Wastl launched his annual Santa-themed puzzle-a-day program. Coming of the Code, 81 people had registered. This is very similar to his preparation for the 70 participants.
But Wastl, a software engineer who works as a senior builder for TCGPlayer, an online gaming consumer online marketplace, failed to anticipate how radio coverage could affect these low expectations. He a joke that the technical statement of what happened next is: “OH NO!” Within 12 hours there were about 4,000 people. The server was about to collapse. In 48 hours, there were 15,000 people, and by the end of the ceremony, on December 25, the total was 52,000. The following year, she transferred the service to Amazon Web Services, and the numbers continue to grow.
Last year, probably due to the epidemic, the event increased 50% on the road, with more than 180,000 participants worldwide.
And again this year, thousands of coders from San Francisco to Slovenia – students and programmers and competing programmers – are reading Christmas and Advent of Code (AoC). When the traditional calendars come they offer daily gifts of chocolate or toys (and more another way Bibles provide dog food, Jack Daniel’s, Lego, or even digital entertainment through software), Coming Coders opens up math problems and writes small computer programs that solve them.
Her hobbies, among other things, are simply in the magic of the revered magic during the holiday season. But I am also subject to the challenges of happiness. Peter Norvig, Google’s research director, is pleased because he trusts the Creator, Wastl, “to make me have a good time” – similarly, Norvig says, as New York Times crossword puzzlers trust Will Shortz to do well. among them. Norvig says: “There will be tricks that make it fun, but there are limits to its complexity.”
Fun coding
At midnight US Eastern time (Wastl is in Buffalo, New York), every night from December 1 to 25, a new picture illuminates adventofcode.com, embedded in a cleverly crafted Christmas story — one actor described it as “the story of Sorry Scheme if there was such a thing. ”
This year’s event got off to a good start when Santa’s elves lost the key to the rope. The first such incident took its toll: “You just imagine yourself on a ship when the alarm goes off! You run to see if you can help. Apparently one of the Elves stumbled and accidentally sent sileigh keys flying into the sea! “
Fortunately, the Elves had a shipwreck in the aftermath of such an accident, and from there the participants set out on a 25-day voyage. others: “That is the correct answer! You are one of the gold stars who is about to discover the keys to the sileigh. “
Every player gets a star by solving a problem, but if you are the first to get a star, you get 100 points; if you are second, you receive 99 points; and so on, with 10oth places to find one point.
“To save Christmas,” explains the puzzles expert, “you have to get all 50 stars by December 25th.
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The purpose of the Advent of Code is to solve problems using the language of your choice (Python is the most popular). Students also use hook-and-turn techniques such as “Excel madness,” as Wastl explains, or graph sheets, and a surprising number solves puzzles in Minecraft.
But the main motivation varies from player to player. Some see it as an annual record of their planning skills; others see it as a perfect opportunity to learn code or try a new language. José Valim, Elixir language producer, is announcing his AoC answers on Twitch.
Above the earth boardboard, which is on the list of 100 top scorers, competitors like Brian Chen (his betaveros “) and Andrew He (” ecnerwala “) and. out of speed. A security software developer is working hide-end at Zoom, Chen became first last year (and last year), while He came second.
Chen states: “Going for a walk is a thrill, just like speeding up an event. There are a few small things that can change, as well as a few minutes of pride when you have made the right choice or preparation that has been helpful. ”
All of the MIT science science alums based in the Bay Area, Chen and He are partners who have been competing for software challenges for years – the same group International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) and as competitors on Codeforces and Google’s Code Jam. This year again, Chen is beating Him. “Honestly, it’s because he’s a little better than me” – well on various tricks and set up speed enhancements – “but I don’t like to admit it,” says He, the founding engineer at Modal founders, who builds. architecture and tools for data groups.
The facilitator team may not reach many participants — especially since distractions are a daily occurrence. Kathryn Tang, who runs the engineering team at Shopify, ranked 36th on the first day and 81 on the third day, but knew that her leading team would not last long. “I’m doing this to have fun using Google pages,” he says.
The content of the competition, however, is replicated in Shopify and Google by many companies large and small – with unique banners, as well as dedicated chat channels where players share responses and kvetch of dying issues.
“Competition fosters commitment,” said engineer Alec Brickner, in response to the Slack approach to Primer.ai, at the start of the development of indigenous languages in San Francisco (Brickner has formed a steering group several days to date).
“Meh,” replied his colleague Michael Leikam. “The benefit for me is the joy of writing essays.”
John Bohannon, Primer’s science director, confirmed this with an emoji: “THE SAME.”
Bohannon also loves a silly story that causes problems, but the plot is useless. “The antichrist runners completely ignore the issue, focusing on the various types of problem to solve and just get by,” he says.
Nora Petrova, a data scientist and engineer at the Primer office in London, UK, is there for the beauty, not the sport: “I love the drama that takes place in any film,” she says. For example, on the fourth day, the arthritis victim boarded a ship — and wanted to play bingo. The entry of the puzzles was 100 random bingo boards, and the challenge was to predict which team would win and give it to arthritis.
Konda XOR Love them
Wastl’s main goal in creating Advent of Code was to help people become better programmers. “The first newcomers to the software are the people I want to benefit from,” he says. “The prospect of success for many will be ‘How many new things have I learned?’ – not ‘Was I one of the fastest people in the world to solve this problem?’”
Russell Helmstedter, a middle school teacher at De Anza Academy of Technology and Arts, in Ventura, California, is using Advent of Code to teach Python to his students in grades 6, 7, and 8. He solved the first two problems together as a class. From a training point of view, these problems are effective systems because if you fail, you can try again — much more in the spirit of the development of tested programs.
Helmstedter found that some of his students were a bit overwhelmed by a double standard — knowing what to do with it and writing a machine to solve it — but many accepted the challenge. “I find it difficult to do that,” says one research student. And someone said, “To be honest there is nothing wrong. I really like how you start working slowly to achieve the goal. ”Although multiple choice questions from the“ you hear ”prompted someone to say“ I hate it, ”the 41 respondents chose“ Like ”(different) and eight“ Love ”.
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At Ljubljana University, in Slovenia, computer scientist Janez Demšar uses AoC challenges as a professor and develops his skills orange, open machine learning machine and viewing toolbox). He says: “I have to practice a lot, like a violinist who sings in the choir and teaches but still needs small pieces to practice,” he says. “Then my education.” Demšar teaches Programming 101 to a large group of over 200 students. AoC’s operations are excellent because they require a variety of skills ”—from standard codes to algorithms.
Gregor Kikelj, a third-year mathematician at the university, first tried Advent of Code in 2019. He did well enough to study at Comma.ai (working on Openpilot, his independent automotive software program), as the company’s founder was also competing. And Kikelj raised his degree in program studies (with another professor), as each problem solved was necessary for the final exam – plus the bonuses to put on the board.
Kikelj (“Greek”) gets up every morning to score 6 a.m. in Slovenia – and sits at number 52 on the team of directors, collecting an additional 23 tests. , ”He recalls. But he is still rising at the sun to pass over the picture. This year his top scorer, Friday, was 25-year-old who wanted to stay above 100. “We’ll see how it goes when the problems get worse,” says Kikelj.
How to make a boardboard
If board is your game, competition is fierce and daily counting is essential — players wait like a foot for the puzzle to fall, then click lickety-split to take it down. Last year, “this one-size-fits-all explosion linked to one second” (as Wastl explains) plagued even Amazon’s stock market.
The AoC Subreddit-One of the many online sites – is full of people who love to play football how to overcome (and solutions and support threads, as well as self and memes). But the best source is probably Brian Chen’s blog post on “how about a leaderboard. ”
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