December 1st snuck up on me again, and with all the holiday cheer and hopes for a New Year comes a new set of… coding problems. The Advent of Code 2024 is out again here. It’s a nice way to wake up in the morning, brew yourself a cup of coffee, put on a Christmas playlist, and help out the elves.

I considered using it as an opportunity to learn a new language or impose some interesting restrictions, but then just decided to do the same thing as last year and solve them with Rust. The only soft restriction this year is only using the standard library, although Rust has an inclusive an well rounded std lib so that’s not much of a challenge.

Usually I start these things full of zeal and with a pep in my step but quit after a week or two. We’ll see how far I get this year. My solutions are in this repo.

I was honestly surprised how many people in the comments on the Hacker News post said they weren’t doing it because it stresses them out. Keeping it chill seems a much more enjoyable route to go.

Happy hacking!