Advent of Code Guide

What is Advent of Code?

Advent of Code is an Advent calendar of small programming puzzles for a variety of skill levels that can be solved in any programming language you like.

Two problems are posted each day from December 1st to December 25th at 12:00 am. To unlock the second problem, you must first complete the "part 1" challenge.

For each problem you complete, you earn a star. Collect all the stars and you "save Christmas". Global completion rates are compiled for each day. Generally, problems start out easier and get harder later in the month. The completion of any number of the challenges is a great accomplishment.

To the left are the completion statistics for the 2021 advent calendar.

You can see 225,877 people completed "part 1" of the challenge on day 1 with 29906 completing "part 2".

There are additional statistics and points for the first 100 completers of a problem, but these are usually solved within minutes using tools outside the scope of this challenge.

What Do Challenges Look Like?

Each challenge consists of an explanation of the problem along with a detailed and worked out example called the test input. Once you have your algorithm and code working with the test input, you can test your code against your unique problem input to see if you're correct and handling all edge cases correctly. The problem input is unique for each individual so each person's answers may be different. You can check out this year's problems here.

The solution is a always a string or numeric value so all you have to do is type it in.

If you are successful, a part 2 of the challenge unlocks and you earn a star. If not, you will be allowed to submit as many times as you like.

Why Should I Do Advent of Code?

Advent of code is a great opportunity to practice your coding language of choice and develop your own skills. In addition, many of the initial challenges can be modified to be projects or labs for students. You'll gain confidence in object-oriented programming and also practice skills like list traversals and the creation of classes and data structures.

The purpose of this page is to give you a starting point for the challenges. You'll also find a guided walkthrough of two Advent of Code problems from previous years with commentary.

Happy coding!

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