I’m Doing the Advent of Code 2024 in Python — Day 1 | by Soner Yıldırım | Dec, 2024

Let’s see how many stars we’ll collect.

Advent of Code is a set of 25 programming puzzles released between December 1st and 25th of every year. Eric Wastl, inspired by the Advent Calendar, has been organizing the Advent of Code since 2015.

This is my first year doing it and I completed the first 4 puzzles. I decided to write a blog post for each puzzle explaining my approach and solution to the problem.

As I heard and read from others who participated in Advent of Code before, it gets really difficult after the 15th puzzle (often earlier).

So I’m not sure if I’ll be able to reach the end but I’ll try my best. In any case, it’ll be a great practice on data structures and algorithms. It’s also a lot of fun solving puzzles and collecting stars.

The puzzles can be solved using any programming language. I’ll be using Python because 1) I’m mostly using Python at work (my other option is R) and 2) I can reach a broader audience with Python.

One last thing before I start: My solution might not be the best or most efficient one. If you know a better solution or have any suggestions to improve mine, please share in the comments.