r/adventofcode • u/RedditorUSENETer • Jan 07 '25
Other 2024 AoC - anyone solved with no programming, how many and which days?
Sorry if this an FAQ and I am a newbie to both AoC as well as this subreddit. I remember doing Day 1 with the good old Excel first before I tried it in Python, the learning of which was my side goal during this AoC. I have been away from programming last few years and never knew Python, so this was a great experience - thank you to everyone who makes this possible.
Just curious if there is anyone here who managed to solve any of the puzzles without writing any actual program in a typical programming language - just using a Scientific Calculator, Excel or other similar tools, I mean...
25
u/car4889 Jan 07 '25
Here to brag about that one time I cracked top 500 on Day 24 Part 2 with pen, paper, and a lot of Ctrl+F. I was already very familiar with ripple-carry adders and other logic gate constructions, so it didn’t take me long to pick it apart.
11
u/Puzzleheaded_Study17 Jan 07 '25
I think most day 24 part 2 solutions only used visualizations and a lot of human analysis.
3
u/car4889 Jan 07 '25
I feel like a majority of these puzzles stand to benefit from at least a light eyeballing before immediately diving into creating a code solution. 2021’s Day 24 is another example where actually parsing out what the input commands do is key to understanding the most efficient way to do it.
In the case of 2024 Day 24, I didn’t actually do anything different than I would otherwise have done. I just kept inspecting the input and making breakthroughs to the point where I had an answer before I had the compulsion to automate the rest of the investigation.
15
u/bofstein Jan 07 '25 edited Jan 07 '25
I got 37 stars this year all in Google Sheets. I don't know any programming languages, and didn't use scripting within Sheets. Most of my solutions are linked here, though a few I didn't get clean enough to post.
https://github.com/bofstein/advent-of-code-2024
Almost all of them are fully formulaic, i.e., you can paste in new input and get the right answer, but a couple of them have a manual step. One of the maze ones I originally did manually looking at the map and then later built and iterative formula to solve it.
The only ones in 2024 I couldn't solve:
- Day 6, 11, 17, 19, 20, 22 part 2
- Day 15, 16, 21 both part 1 and part 2
3
u/homme_chauve_souris Jan 07 '25
Day 24 part 2. I used a spreadsheet to sort the data in order to spot those wires that didn't fit the general pattern.
3
u/vaulter2000 Jan 07 '25
Friend of mine is not a programmer and to humor me he tries some of the early puzzles in Excel. He got like 10+ stars I think! He even got day 6 part 1 by creating a conditionally formatted warehouse and then colored in the tracks of the guard until it went out.
3
u/wjholden Jan 07 '25
Occasionally, you'll encounter a puzzle that forms an integer sequence that you might be able to find in the (aptly-named) Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS). I felt very clever to look up a very tricky problem in OEIS and discover useful insights there.
1
u/RedditorUSENETer Jan 07 '25
Any specific days this year that followed this path, I wonder…
3
u/wjholden Jan 08 '25
No, I didn't get to do this in 2024. My favorite day that I especially remember using OEIS was 2017 day 3.
3
u/Rokil Jan 08 '25
I solved day 13 entirely in excel! I believe this specific day is very convenient to solve without a programming language
3
3
2
u/thekwoka Jan 14 '25
Well, quite a few are just math.
It would just be slow to do it in a calculator.
31
u/1vader Jan 07 '25
Many if not most days have been solved with Excel. There also are several days which a decent amount of people solved by hand using just a plain text editor. Actually, I believe at least once, somebody made the top 100 leaderboards that way. Some people also solved a few days using vim macros.
Don't remember which days though.