Coding Day

I've decided to participate in the annual Advent of Code competition this year as a way to flex the programming skills that have lain dormant since 2017. Advent of Code is a global competition where people compete to solve daily two-part logic puzzles (like this one) as fast as possible using any programming language they want (Some masochists have done it in BASIC, Oracle functions, and even Excel!). My company is one of the corporate sponsors.

Rather than investing in personal growth by using this opportunity to learn a new language, I'll play it safe and go back to my Eclipse/Java/JUnit roots. I have no hope of getting on the global leaderboards (the fastest global solve time for both parts of the Day 1 puzzle was a ridiculous 1 minute 48 seconds) but I'm putting forth a reasonably good showing on my company's private leaderboard so far (out of about 65 participants). Here are my results so far:

• Rank 1 Fastest: Fastest solve time on the company leaderboard
• +/-: Difference between my time and the fastest time.
• Daily Rank: My placement for a single daily puzzle.
• Overall Raw Rank: My leaderboard position at the end of this day.
• Overall Adjusted Rank: My leaderboard position at the end of this day, adjusted based on median solve times. (Because many employees beat every puzzle, ties are broken by the median fastest solve time over all 25 days).

I also coded up a static page that shows the company's Top 10 Solve Times, updated daily. I'll post my full results at the end of the month. Join in yourself if you like to code!