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Comment by kif | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if I'll even bother this year. Their puzzles start feeling like chores by the 10th problem or so and I drop out. Maybe I'll learn a new language to spice it up this year.

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I tried AoC for the first time last year, and that was pretty much my experience. A week or so of easy problems, then 1 or 2 that were still pretty straightforward but a bit more tedious, then 1 that was a lot more work because you were supposed to derive some of the rules from the example. I don't think it would've been too hard, but like you said, it was starting to feel like a chore at that point, so I stopped.

Each year I do it until it no longer sparks joy, and then stop. I usually make it about 2 weeks. I don't see anything wrong with that.

I'm using this year's to dust off my Rust skills in advance of a new job using that language, so that's nice too.

For me it's a convenient excuse to write some Lisp and I often learn something by looking at other solutions once I've had a go myself.

> like chores by the 10th problem or so and I drop out

That they get so involved is the reason I participate (despite also working at the same time). I love the fact that the difficulty starts low and then goes up to levels where I feel really challenged. It's a month (well, 25 days) commitment which pays off the entire 11 other months for me :)

> Their puzzles start feeling like chores

Advent of chore ? :)

..though I agree - never went past 10th day or so.

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