Advent of Code 2020
This repo will contain all the puzzle inputs (full and test) and my solutions for the 2020 Advent of Code challenge (https://adventofcode.com/2020).
Days 1-6 were written in December 2020, when I was basically brand new to coding and learning what I could on my own, online. I had taken a couple of free online courses covering the very basics of a few languages, most recently Harvard's CS-50 on edX. I used their IDE because I had no idea how to set up my own or even choose another one. I used Python because it seemed easier than C or Javascript, the other two languages I had enough experience with to write more than "Hello, world." With Day 1's puzzle, I had an idea of how to solve it, but was stumped for a while on how to even get my input into my program. I googled almost everything. I moved slowly, but enjoyed every step.
Eventually I hit a wall with Day 7. I had a hunch that I needed to use dictionaries, but was still shaky on how they worked and didn't understand nested data structures. Parsing strings and slicing lists were at the very limits of my understanding. I set AOC aside.
As of this writing (August 8, 2021), I'm three weeks into a Data Science bootcamp with the Flatiron School--still very new to coding, but better at googling and reading documentation. So far in the program we've done a lot with Python and nested data structures. Earlier today I noticed AOC Day 7 still open in a very old tab...and suddenly and simultaneously remembered the nature of the puzzle and had an idea for a solution. It feels good to be tackling these again, this time with a little more context and a little more know-how.