Getting started with Derw for Advent Of Code

You may have heard of Advent Of Code before, but if not, the concept is pretty fun - for every day between December 1st and December 25th, there will be a two part coding challenge released. Over 1 million people have created accounts there. The challenges usually begin quite easy, before ramping up as the days progress. They’re well written, and themed, with some test case data that can be used to write your solution before trying with the real case data. It will usually take the average developer somewhere between 30 minutes - 2 hours to solve a day’s challenges, depending on how they choose to solve the problem. After a few days I usually drop off, finding less time to complete them as I end up travelling or being with family.

Because of Advent Of Code’s well contained, small, scope, a lot of people choose to do it in a new language. Perhaps they spend all day coding in Python, so they try out Haskell. Or they’ve finally bought into everything they’ve been reading about Rust online and want to test it. The last two years, I did it in Derw. The first year was rough going, often needing to fix bugs in the compiler. Last year though, I had a great time and was more engaged than usual. This year I’m running an event in Oslo where participants are given two languages, one well known, one obscure, with the goal of completing the first day’s challenges in them.

I’ve prepped a repo for anyone who might want to do this year’s in Derw. There’s an example for Day 1 of 2022, and some helpers to get you going. I would love if anyone tried it out - that would be an awesome start to this year’s holiday period for me. Either way, I highly recommend checking out Advent of Code and have some fun with it!