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>This year’s Advent of Code has been brutal (compare the stats of 2023 with that of 2022, especially day 1 part 1 vs. day 1 part 2). I enjoyed completing AoC t

by dps 3y ago

>This year’s Advent of Code has been brutal (compare the stats of 2023 with that of 2022, especially day 1 part 1 vs. day 1 part 2). I enjoyed completing AoC this year. While it was very clear that day 1 (esp. part 2) was significantly harder than previous years (I wrote about this among other things [0]), OP's claim seemed not obviously self evident when comparing _current_ 2022 stats to _current_ 2023 stats, as folks have had an additional full year to complete the 2022 puzzles. I grabbed the 2022 stats from Jan 14th 2023 [1] and, indeed, the difference is quite stark. Graphing the part two completion stats[2] for both years, there was a relatively similar starting cohort size on day 1, but 2023 looks clearly harder than 2022 up until day 15. As OP observes, the ratio[3] of folks completing pt1 but not going on to complete pt 2 is way higher for a lot of days in 2023 and suggests the day 5, 10, 12 and especially day 22 part 2s were particularly difficult. [0] https://blog.singleton.io/posts/2024-01-02-advent-of-code-2023/ https://blog.singleton.io/posts/2024-01-02-advent-of-code-20... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20230114172513/https://adventofcode.com/2022/stats https://web.archive.org/web/20230114172513/https://adventofc... [2] https://blog.singleton.io/static/imgs-aoc23/completion.png https://blog.singleton.io/static/imgs-aoc23/completion.png [3] https://blog.singleton.io/static/imgs-aoc23/ratios.png https://blog.singleton.io/static/imgs-aoc23/ratios.png

Kwpolska 3y ago
Early AoC was fun, you could get away without anything fancy until late in the game. Then it got harder, not fun, so I gave up and stopped touching it.
qsantos 3y ago
Thanks for the details. To add to this discussion, I have a script to see the progression over the days. Looking at the last two columns, you can see how brutal 2023 was compared to 2022. Especially in the beginning. The first few days, most people keep playing, with a retention higher than 80% most days, and virtually everyone people solve both parts. In contrast, only 76% of people solved part 2 after solving part 1. And many people gave up on days 3 and 5. Interestingly, the last few days are not that much lower. And that can be explained by the fact that AoC 2023 is more recent than AoC 2022, like you said. My interpretation is that this group of people will get over all the challenges regardless of the difficulty (to an extent, of course), while many other people will give up when they realize it will take too much of their time. Stats for year 2022 of Advent of Code ------------------------------------- Day Both puzzles One puzzle Total Rel. puzzle 1/2 Rel. day before 1 280,838 15,047 295,885 95 % 100 % 2 232,752 12,403 245,155 95 % 83 % 3 200,016 11,392 211,408 95 % 86 % 4 184,435 3,734 188,169 98 % 92 % 5 157,392 3,116 160,508 98 % 85 % 6 155,921 1,602 157,523 99 % 99 % 7 113,241 2,592 115,833 98 % 73 % 8 107,224 7,659 114,883 93 % 95 % 9 82,414 11,449 93,863 88 % 77 % 10 85,075 5,511 90,586 94 % 103 % 11 68,838 9,258 78,096 88 % 81 % 12 59,253 1,061 60,314 98 % 86 % 13 51,512 1,220 52,732 98 % 87 % 14 49,051 991 50,042 98 % 95 % 15 39,677 5,773 45,450 87 % 81 % 16 23,298 5,650 28,948 80 % 59 % 17 21,525 6,237 27,762 78 % 92 % 18 25,420 4,927 30,347 84 % 118 % 19 17,516 928 18,444 95 % 69 % 20 22,141 1,003 23,144 96 % 126 % 21 23,022 3,060 26,082 88 % 104 % 22 15,393 5,083 20,476 75 % 67 % 23 18,531 254 18,785 99 % 120 % 24 16,419 252 16,671 98 % 89 % 25 13,192 7,473 20,665 64 % 80 % ~/src/advent-of-code% ./stats.py 2023 Stats for year 2023 of Advent of Code ------------------------------------- Day Both puzzles One puzzle Total Rel. puzzle 1/2 Rel. day before 1 230,737 73,941 304,678 76 % 100 % 2 196,352 9,256 205,608 95 % 85 % 3 130,406 19,913 150,319 87 % 66 % 4 130,271 17,691 147,962 88 % 100 % 5 80,255 31,029 111,284 72 % 62 % 6 103,358 1,918 105,276 98 % 129 % 7 81,905 7,308 89,213 92 % 79 % 8 74,034 14,707 88,741 83 % 90 % 9 76,438 1,229 77,667 98 % 103 % 10 48,313 17,054 65,367 74 % 63 % 11 57,339 2,386 59,725 96 % 119 % 12 30,985 14,440 45,425 68 % 54 % 13 38,217 5,223 43,440 88 % 123 % 14 36,500 7,457 43,957 83 % 96 % 15 40,881 4,156 45,037 91 % 112 % 16 35,347 1,023 36,370 97 % 86 % 17 24,014 1,097 25,111 96 % 68 % 18 24,799 4,937 29,736 83 % 103 % 19 22,525 7,197 29,722 76 % 91 % 20 18,287 4,398 22,685 81 % 81 % 21 14,311 10,149 24,460 59 % 78 % 22 15,830 988 16,818 94 % 111 % 23 14,562 2,964 17,526 83 % 92 % 24 11,864 4,918 16,782 71 % 81 % 25 10,522 3,048 13,570 78 % 89 %
benrow 3y ago
I didn't get very far into AoC this year as I ran out of time. Maybe I'll pick it up again later. But my point is, I was surprised at how hard day 5, part 2 was. I didn't give up and solved it, but went away wondering whey I'd missed something obvious and overcomplicated it. So it brings some relief to know it was 'supposed" to be a bit challenging!
binglebob 3y ago
This was just my personal experience (which certainly came from trying out a different language than I typically use in my day to day), but I'd argue that day 1 part 2 wasn't _hard_, but improperly specified from the prompt. The examples given are: two1nine eightwothree abcone2threexyz xtwone3four 4nineeightseven2 zoneight234 7pqrstsixteen There is one critical example missing from this set and you can't exactly just figure out how you're meant to substitute the values without an example like: oneight

by dps 3y ago

Kwpolska 3y ago

Early AoC was fun, you could get away without anything fancy until late in the game. Then it got harder, not fun, so I gave up and stopped touching it.

qsantos 3y ago

Thanks for the details. To add to this discussion, I have a script to see the progression over the days. Looking at the last two columns, you can see how brutal 2023 was compared to 2022. Especially in the beginning. The first few days, most people keep playing, with a retention higher than 80% most days, and virtually everyone people solve both parts. In contrast, only 76% of people solved part 2 after solving part 1. And many people gave up on days 3 and 5. Interestingly, the last few days are not that much lower. And that can be explained by the fact that AoC 2023 is more recent than AoC 2022, like you said. My interpretation is that this group of people will get over all the challenges regardless of the difficulty (to an extent, of course), while many other people will give up when they realize it will take too much of their time. Stats for year 2022 of Advent of Code ------------------------------------- Day Both puzzles One puzzle Total Rel. puzzle 1/2 Rel. day before 1 280,838 15,047 295,885 95 % 100 % 2 232,752 12,403 245,155 95 % 83 % 3 200,016 11,392 211,408 95 % 86 % 4 184,435 3,734 188,169 98 % 92 % 5 157,392 3,116 160,508 98 % 85 % 6 155,921 1,602 157,523 99 % 99 % 7 113,241 2,592 115,833 98 % 73 % 8 107,224 7,659 114,883 93 % 95 % 9 82,414 11,449 93,863 88 % 77 % 10 85,075 5,511 90,586 94 % 103 % 11 68,838 9,258 78,096 88 % 81 % 12 59,253 1,061 60,314 98 % 86 % 13 51,512 1,220 52,732 98 % 87 % 14 49,051 991 50,042 98 % 95 % 15 39,677 5,773 45,450 87 % 81 % 16 23,298 5,650 28,948 80 % 59 % 17 21,525 6,237 27,762 78 % 92 % 18 25,420 4,927 30,347 84 % 118 % 19 17,516 928 18,444 95 % 69 % 20 22,141 1,003 23,144 96 % 126 % 21 23,022 3,060 26,082 88 % 104 % 22 15,393 5,083 20,476 75 % 67 % 23 18,531 254 18,785 99 % 120 % 24 16,419 252 16,671 98 % 89 % 25 13,192 7,473 20,665 64 % 80 % ~/src/advent-of-code% ./stats.py 2023 Stats for year 2023 of Advent of Code ------------------------------------- Day Both puzzles One puzzle Total Rel. puzzle 1/2 Rel. day before 1 230,737 73,941 304,678 76 % 100 % 2 196,352 9,256 205,608 95 % 85 % 3 130,406 19,913 150,319 87 % 66 % 4 130,271 17,691 147,962 88 % 100 % 5 80,255 31,029 111,284 72 % 62 % 6 103,358 1,918 105,276 98 % 129 % 7 81,905 7,308 89,213 92 % 79 % 8 74,034 14,707 88,741 83 % 90 % 9 76,438 1,229 77,667 98 % 103 % 10 48,313 17,054 65,367 74 % 63 % 11 57,339 2,386 59,725 96 % 119 % 12 30,985 14,440 45,425 68 % 54 % 13 38,217 5,223 43,440 88 % 123 % 14 36,500 7,457 43,957 83 % 96 % 15 40,881 4,156 45,037 91 % 112 % 16 35,347 1,023 36,370 97 % 86 % 17 24,014 1,097 25,111 96 % 68 % 18 24,799 4,937 29,736 83 % 103 % 19 22,525 7,197 29,722 76 % 91 % 20 18,287 4,398 22,685 81 % 81 % 21 14,311 10,149 24,460 59 % 78 % 22 15,830 988 16,818 94 % 111 % 23 14,562 2,964 17,526 83 % 92 % 24 11,864 4,918 16,782 71 % 81 % 25 10,522 3,048 13,570 78 % 89 %

benrow 3y ago

I didn't get very far into AoC this year as I ran out of time. Maybe I'll pick it up again later. But my point is, I was surprised at how hard day 5, part 2 was. I didn't give up and solved it, but went away wondering whey I'd missed something obvious and overcomplicated it. So it brings some relief to know it was 'supposed" to be a bit challenging!

binglebob 3y ago

This was just my personal experience (which certainly came from trying out a different language than I typically use in my day to day), but I'd argue that day 1 part 2 wasn't _hard_, but improperly specified from the prompt. The examples given are: two1nine eightwothree abcone2threexyz xtwone3four 4nineeightseven2 zoneight234 7pqrstsixteen There is one critical example missing from this set and you can't exactly just figure out how you're meant to substitute the values without an example like: oneight